


the waiting seems eternity (this flame that burns inside of me)

by pepperfield



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn, Aziraphale and Crowley Met Before The Fall (Good Omens), M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Requited Love, angel!Crowley, aziraphale fell in love first: change my mind, before the fall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-05-13 08:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19247338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepperfield/pseuds/pepperfield
Summary: On the Fourth Day of Creation, Aziraphale falls a little bit in love with an angel who lights the stars in the sky.2,169,343 days later, he realizes that he might be in deeper than he thought.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kythen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kythen/gifts).



> I wrote this because I wanted 6000 years of pining on both sides of the equation!! And because the thought of them knowing each other before the Fall gave me feelings. Apologies for the liberties taken with Genesis!
> 
> This one's for Ky, because of course it is! Title comes from Queen's A Kind of Magic.

Aziraphale was never one of the builders. It had not been Her intent, though in retrospect, it’s not like She had ever said as such in so many words. At first, Aziraphale had not existed, and then he had, and the next thing he knew he had a flashy sword all full of fire and was stationed atop a craggy rock as the sea was cleft from the land. Guarding the other angels, apparently, though it felt more like spectating than anything else. There wasn’t anything to guard from in those days, and the division was quite an exciting event. He still remembers the funny little slip that resulted in the Mariana Trench.

The sword wasn’t necessary yet, he would come to understand, and by the time it became necessary he had gone and given it away to the poor humans, so it was all a moot point.

(And years upon years later, after watching War herself draw his sword against a child, he would wonder if perhaps Crowley hadn’t been incorrect. Had he done the wrong thing after all? Because some days it feels like it’s all too easy to do wrong, and all too easy for Crowley to do right.)

But before the humans, before the Fall, before everything that would come to shape Earth into the wonderful, peculiar planet that he grew to love, there was the Fourth Day.

The Third Day had been Aziraphale’s first, and after the long separation came the flowers and seeds, the blooming and the blossoming. He liked that part of it: watching the other angels help bring spry green things into existence. It was a lot less shaky than the part that came before, and he was quite impressed with the results. 

So the Third Day was well and good, but the Fourth Day? Now, _that_ was truly something else.

The sun was the greatest undertaking, seeing as it had to sustain whatever was to populate the planet, so there was a whole team toiling away on it, making sure all the metrics and measurements were correct. Aziraphale found the project entertaining enough, but no one ever really had the time to talk about it, so before long his interest was diverted toward the billions of stars that began blinking into existence across the black tapestry of space.

Glowing red stars and sugar-spun nebulae, ice-tailed comets and moons and lonely planets in the far flung corners of the universe. There was plenty of time to stargaze during guard duty, so Aziraphale would take his post and then stare up into the cosmos, watching hydrogen and helium weave together into great symphonies of light.

One of these nights — and there were nights now, since the sun had been a smashing success — he was looking up at the sky again, searching out one of his favorite galaxies to watch, when he noticed he had acquired a companion. Usually the other angels gathered elsewhere once their work was done, so it was a pleasant surprise to find someone else had stuck around. People didn’t have a tendency to stay when Aziraphale was involved.

Sitting in the sands below was an angel staring up at a nebula, legs folded up beneath him and his golden eyes caught on a luminous star cluster in the middle. Aziraphale would have liked to approach, but it felt inappropriate, interrupting the other angel’s contemplation, or appreciation, or whatever he was doing down there with his feet buried in the sand and his black wings tucked in neatly. 

It was his feathers that drew Aziraphale’s attention first. This, he would remember even after the Fall, when a snake came slithering over and sparked up a conversation, the same way he was about to in approximately twenty-eight seconds — the same way he would do so over and over again through the passing years.

So though it would come to be Crowley’s voice that always pulled Aziraphale back into the present, that spoke to the very core of his being each and every time, it was first those lovely wings that caught his eye. Pitch-black and beautiful, not a single mottled gray or frivolous white to mar his plumage. Aziraphale’s were plain white, and he felt an odd frisson of...not envy, of course not, for that would hardly be angelic, but admiration, perhaps.

“That’s quite a sword you’ve got,” the angel called over, interrupting Aziraphale’s embarrassing line of thought. He was awfully far for holding polite conversation, so Aziraphale had no choice but to move closer. Not too far from his station, but close enough to speak comfortably.

“Yes, I find it, er- useful.” He didn’t actually have much reason to use it yet, but it had a lot of potential, and that was what mattered. “Sometimes one finds oneself in need of a fire, and well! Here I am with a whole swordful of it.”

A flicker of amusement passed across the angel’s face, which was an expression Aziraphale wasn’t used to seeing. He slowly unfolded himself from the ground and wandered over so that they were but a few feet apart. “I’ll keep it in mind. Very multipurpose, that. So, the stars, eh? Did you see what they were doing with Alpha Centauri earlier? I thought the planet was a nice touch.”

Ah, a fellow patron of the celestial arts! “Oh, I agree! Making the small one a flare star was my favorite part, personally. And a three star system! How fun.”

“It’s quite innovative. I’m almost sorry we didn’t try it out over here. Could you imagine three suns bouncing about? It would be chaotically inconvenient.” Chaos sounded rather stressful to Aziraphale, but the way the other angel shook his head while laughing made it seem a little less bad.

“I think I’m glad we stuck to just the one.” From this close, Aziraphale could more clearly see his features: the line of his nose, the golden cast to his eyes, the shine of his sleek midnight feathers. This was altogether too much admiration now, so he cast about looking for something to say in order to distract himself. “What is it you were looking at just now?”

“That one? The Almighty says we’ll be calling it Eta Carinae eventually. Or, that’s what Metatron said She said. The Carina Nebula is the biggish bit surrounding it.” He raised one lanky arm to point at the billowing clouds of dust spreading like rose petals around the scattering of stars. “And there’s HD 93129 — another triple for you.”

“Bit of a mouthful, but the craftsmanship is impeccable,” Aziraphale said, trying to sound worldly and knowledgeable about these sorts of things. He didn’t build, but he did have eyes, or some incorporeal structure that functioned as eyes, and he thought of himself as a kind of budding connoisseur of the finer works of creation. “Very lovely.”

“It- it _is_ rather lovely, isn’t it?” the other angel said, looking back up at Eta Carinae while wearing the start of a smile. “Is it immodest to say that?”

“Immodest? Were you involved in the project?” He suspected that his voice was a touch too excited.

“I, well, yes. I helped make that one. And a few others. I could- mrph. I could point them out to you, if you’d like. In your free time.” The angel shuffled awkwardly in place, legs and hips moving in a swaying manner that Aziraphale had never noticed from anyone else. 

He wanted to accept the offer right away, but the weight of his sword in his hand was enough of a reminder that it would probably be rather frowned upon if he were to abandon his post. Deflated, he shook his head.

“Oh. That’s very kind of you, but I’m- I’m supposed to be standing guard, you see-”

“Right, of course! Of course, you’ve got the sword and everything. I should’ve known; that was thick of me, sorry. It’s just- not a lot of others tend to stay down here. Back up to Heaven they go,” he said with a droll little twirl of his wrist, pointing back home.

“You don’t like it in Heaven?” Aziraphale didn’t think he had much of an opinion of it yet, seeing as he spent most of his time on Earth, but he’d never heard anyone speak about it with that tone of voice before.

The angel shrugged. “Well, it’s a bit empty up there, isn’t it? Not of company, but character, don’t you think? Very sterile. A little stuffy. Maybe She’ll have us primp it up once the rest of the work is done, but it isn’t half as interesting as it is down here. I mean, look!” He pointed toward the garden in the distance, his eyes lit with excitement. “We have plants now!”

“Yes, I do think the green initiative has been very rewarding,” Aziraphale agreed, starting to smile himself. No one ever seemed particularly enthusiastic about the job until now. He thought that they were kindred spirits, he and this angel. “Are any of them yours?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a couple dozen to my name,” he replied proudly. “Have you seen bamboo yet?” When Aziraphale shook his head, the light in him seemed to dim just slightly. “Ah, it’s a pity you’ve got work.”

“Perhaps another time,” Aziraphale offered before the chance could be lost. “I hear they’re starting on another galaxy tomorrow. I don’t know if you’re involved, but I’m certain I’ll be somewhere around here; you could come by and chat in between stars. I’ll be the one with the- well, you know.” He waved his sword in the air sheepishly.

“You _are_ difficult to miss.” They smiled at one another briefly before the other angel gestured upward again, looking a little exasperated. “Speaking of, I better get back upstairs. They’re probably giving out assignments right about now. I wouldn’t want to miss out on a good one.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Aziraphale said, bowing slightly and feeling a bit stupid about it. The angel gave him a casual salute in response, and it made his own odd goodbye seem less strange. There was something about this angel that made Aziraphale feel less alone. That made him feel understood. Known.

The other angel shook the sand from his feet before nodding at Aziraphale, as if to acknowledge him. “I’ll be seeing you around.” And he took off, slipping between the barrier that separated the firmament from above.

Some hours after he’d gone and Aziraphale was watching his third ever sunrise, a startling thought occurred to him.

Aziraphale never thought to ask his name.

\--

They did not meet again until three days later (though it was still the Fourth Day), when Andromeda was being churned into existence. Aziraphale was patrolling outside the garden, on the lookout for pesky sandstorms, when a familiar form strolled on up holding a round, needly thing.

“Have you got time to discuss the succulent problem?” he called as he walked up the dune. Another angel on a faraway ridge raised her eyebrows as he passed by, but returned to surveying space for the right place to throw in another asterism.

“Erm, I think so?” Aziraphale called back.

“Good, it’s a tricky one,” the angel said loudly as he marched toward Aziraphale. He seemed to be putting on a show for an unknown audience. “Very urgent.”

“I can tell. It looks absolutely dire!” Aziraphale yelled, because if his friend was trying to hide something from prying eyes, the least he could do was to play along.

“The direst,” his angel agreed as he finally reached him. “Sorry about all the theatrics,” he said quietly, putting his funny little plant on the ground. “I’m off duty now, but I didn’t want anyone to think you were taking things too easy up here. If they ask, we’re talking shop.”

“Well, we are, aren’t we? You were going to tell me about your recent projects.”

“Excellent point. Have you seen a cactus yet?”

Aziraphale had seen a few tall ones, but nothing like this rotund fellow with pink flowers dotting its crown. “Why, it’s perfect. So spherical!”

“Perfect is a strong word,” the angel deflected, but he looked hesitantly pleased. “Would you like to- there’s a new event going on later- I played a small part in it, and I thought-”

“I’d love to see it,” Aziraphale interrupted, smiling when Carina looked relieved at his answer.

They’d never exchanged names at their first meeting, and it was too awkward to ask for one now, so Aziraphale didn’t. In the privacy of his own mind, he’d taken to calling the other angel Carina after his nebula.

“It’s already happening, but you won’t be able to catch it from your outpost until the sun goes. I’ll point it out to you then.”

“Thank you, I’d like that. Did you bring any other plants?” He craned his neck to see if Carina had any tiny buds hidden in his robe. 

“Not as such, but it’s been looking rather bare here.” Carina looked around furtively, and then stuck his hand in the sand next to his cactus and raised up a bunch of flat green leaves lined with yellow. “This one’s _Sansevieria trifasciata_.”

With a careful hand, Aziraphale touched one stiff leaf, enjoying the handiwork of the fibers beneath. “The variegation is very nice! You did a wonderful job with this one, my dear.” The affectionate pet name slipped out without warning, but Carina just tousled his feathers shyly and sprouted another bizarre plant next to the first two.

“ _Trachyandra tortilis_ ,” he said of the thin, ruffled thing. Its appearance startled a laugh out of Aziraphale, who had grown too used to the roses and deciduous trees of the garden.

“What _is_ this? It’s- I can’t even describe it. It’s positively delightful.” He crouched down to poke at one wriggling leaf.

“Thought you might enjoy it.”

As they waited for the sun to set, Carina grew a dozen other plants, right next to Aziraphale’s outpost. Aziraphale was so entertained by the whole thing that he’d forgotten about what Carina wanted to show him, until he felt the other angel tugging at his robe.

“Look up.”

Aziraphale did so, right at the spot Carina was pointing toward, where a star suddenly seemed to streak across the sky.

“Did that star just fall out of the sky?” he asked incredulously, spinning round to face Carina, who was smiling almost smugly back.

“Look closer this time.” Another handful of white stars shot past.

Upon further inspection, Aziraphale saw that what he thought were stars were really burning rocks, lighting the air as they tore through the firmament. He stood there, transfixed, as more and more glittering lights flew by.

“We’re calling them meteors. I can’t take much credit for this one, but I thought you might want to see it.”

“You were completely right.” Aziraphale stopped watching the sky for long enough to see if there was anyone else around, but they were alone again as far as he could see. So he lowered himself until he was sitting on the sand, and then concentrated on pulling his wings _in_ until he felt them fold up out of sight.

He could see the surprise in Carina’s eyes, but he soon followed suit after he saw Aziraphale lie down flat and wave at him. His nose scrunched in confusion as he twisted to watch his wings fold away, and then he sat down in a daze.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” he said wondrously, turning around again to now look at his bare back.

“I only discovered it a day ago. It makes lying down a lot more comfortable.” Carina took his word for it and lay himself flat as well so they could watch the meteors burning up in the sky.

Carina asked after his day, so Aziraphale told him about the fissure that opened up in the earth that needed to be patched up, and the argument he overheard between several project leads about where to put Andromeda. Carina laughed even when Aziraphale’s comments were only mildly amusing, and he hummed thoughtfully at the right places.

They spent hours watching the sky, talking about anything and nothing at all, until the glow of the sun kissed the edge of the sky, and Carina had to depart before long.

“Keep the plants,” he said as he sat up. “There’s never anything here but you; it could do with a touch of green.”

“Thank you. I wish- I’m sorry that I have nothing to give you in return,” Aziraphale said, twisting his hands nervously. 

Carina tilted his head, observing him for a moment before smiling. “If I were expecting something back, it wouldn’t be a gift, would it? Besides, there’s nothing I want from you besides your company. You- ghh, how do I say this.” He lifted his hands and twirled them around, as if to try to capture the words he was struggling to find. “I think- I’m sure, actually, that you might be my first friend.” His hands dropped back into his lap abruptly. 

Aziraphale sucked in a breath, unable to do anything but blink foolishly back at him. “You most certainly are mine,” he croaked, overwhelmed by the affection he was suddenly aware of in his chest. “You’re the most interesting part of my day.”

“You see something new and exciting every other second, you over-sentimental angel,” Carina said softly as he shook his wings back out. Perhaps it was true, but it wouldn’t stop Aziraphale from saying this next, while his defenses were still down. 

“And still none are so exciting as you. Good morning, my friend,” he said as the sun’s rays broke past the horizon. “I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

\--

On the Fifth Day, Aziraphale saw a bird for the first time. A dove, to be precise, and there was something heartwarming about seeing another creature in flight. Plain and white-feathered like himself, too. He was near enough to the sea today to see the teeming swarms of fish and reefs and whales being brought to life, and he kept an eye out for Carina among the angels standing on the ocean and knitting bones and flesh together under the water.

Carina swung by several times over the next few days. He was quite involved with some of the deep sea creatures — “You wouldn’t believe the teeth on this one! Like a maw full of knives.” — and had been called away to do some bird work as well. “I’ll tell you all about it once they stop running me ragged,” he said as he hotfooted it off to another corner of the globe.

“Don’t forget to preen your feathers,” Aziraphale called after him, for he was beginning to look a little wild-eyed and rumpled.

“Right, will do,” Carina shouted back, already hop-stumbling down the sand dune.

Once some of the fervor died down, Aziraphale saw him again one evening. He had a black bird on his head and seemed to be talking to it as he approached.

“What have you got there?” Aziraphale asked, grinning when the bird pecked at Carina’s fingertips as he tried to get it to walk into his hand.

“This tetchy thing is a crow,” he responded, scowling when the crow hopped backwards a step to nestle in his hair instead of onto his hand.

“You match!” The crow was as black as Carina’s own wings, and probably too clever for its own good.

“That was the intent, and also clearly a mistake. Come here, you little-” 

The crow decided to the exact opposite and took off, flying away out of sight.

“You’ve gone and made something of a rascal, haven’t you?” Aziraphale said fondly, and Carina pulled a face at him before seeming to remember something.

“Um, I’ve got some news.”

Aziraphale felt his heart skip a beat at Carina’s serious tone, and he asked, his throat dry, “Is it- not bad news, I hope?”

“Oh, no. It’s really more surprising than anything. Uh. God called me to Her today. After I was done making that ornery thing,” he said, waving in the direction the crow had flown off to.

“She spoke to you?” Aziraphale demanded, his eyebrows rising up into his hairline. “For what?”

“Just- just to talk, apparently. I’d had the bird with me at the time, and She asked to see it, so I handed it over, of course.

“She named it a crow, and I said ‘that’s a nice name,’ because what else do you say to God? I mean, we’ve never spoken before, not even after the asteroid belt, which I thought was a pretty neat accomplishment, and would’ve been the time, if ever, to do a little conversing- anyway, that piece of drivel left my mouth, and She said- do you know what She said? She said, ‘I thought you might like it,’ and then She was gone, but-! Can you believe it? She thought I might like it! God has _thought_ about me before. Me!”

Aziraphale nodded patiently through this whole onslaught of words, before placing a hand gently at Carina’s shoulder. “Of course She has. She thinks about all Her creations. And one so accomplished as you are- there’s not a chance that you haven’t crossed Her mind before.”

“Yes, but I thought- I suppose I thought it was in a more general kind of way. There are so many moving parts now to keep track of; I never thought that you or I in particular were on Her mind.” Carina looked lost at this, and Aziraphale patted softly at his shoulder. 

“Well, _you_ are, dear. You’ve been making the most wonderful things; of course She took notice of you. I’d wager that you’re one of Her most industrious angels.” He was certain that God must think as highly of Carina as he did. “Now, in my case, I’m more of a background angel-”

Carina reeled backwards, clutching at his collarbone. “ _Nonsense_. Aziraphale, have you seen anyone else puttering around with a sword like that? Has any other angel been tasked with guarding the rest of creation? With protecting us? You’re special. A _guardian_. No one else can do what you do-”

“My dear, all I do is wander about and wave my sword to keep the peace between things that have no desire to hurt each other.”

“And you’re the absolute best at it there is. Besides, God gave you this job for a reason. Right now, there’s not much to guard, but someday, when creation is finished- who knows? There’s a divine plan, and you’re a vital part of it.”

That much, Aziraphale could agree with, so he nodded blankly until Carina clapped him on the back. 

“Oh, by the way, have you seen the dove yet?”

At this, Aziraphale brightened. “I have! One flew by this morning while the whales were being pieced together. It was a treat to see it flying; plain white, like mine.” He ruffled his own feathers happily as he reminisced about it.

“I was thinking of you when I made it.” At Aziraphale’s completely ambushed look, Carina backpedeled quickly, waving his hand in a flippant way. “I mean, it isn’t supposed to represent you- you’re much more respectable than a plump bird, but you know, with your white wings- I know you don’t build, but I do, and it only seemed fair to have something in creation that reflected you too.” 

“T _-thank_ you, my dear,” Aziraphale got out eventually, when he was halfway done with being moved by the gesture. “That’s the kindest gift anyone has ever given me.” 

“It’s the least you deserve,” Carina said gruffly. 

“I do wish I had something for you in return. You wouldn’t happen to want a flaming sword, would you? It’s my most prized possession,” Aziraphale said, only half-joking. He turned it so the hilt was facing Carina, who just laughed.

“What would I do with the thing?”

“About as much as I do, probably. I suppose I’ll have to save it for someone who really needs it,” he said with a sigh as he slid it back into its sheath. Carina watched him put it away, and then shook his head, looking amused.

“That sounds like the right idea. Anyhow, I’ve got a long list of assignments to get prepared for, so I’ll have to find you again later. Ta.” And he took off.

Aziraphale waved his goodbye, even if he was pretty certain Carina wouldn’t be looking back.

As he herded a mob of emus back in the right direction that night, he came to realize that he had been given more than one gift today. 

Carina knew his name. Aziraphale had never given it to him, but he knew it regardless, which means he must have asked someone else, or paid much more attention than Aziraphale did. How mortifying, to know that he was failing his side of the friendship, calling his best friend by a thoughtless nickname all this time. He would have to fix this immediately, as embarrassing as it would be to admit. But Carina was good-natured, even if he did tease sometimes, so hopefully he wouldn’t hold this blunder against Aziraphale for too long.

And Aziraphale did so want to finally know his angel’s name.

\--

Aziraphale resolved to bite back his pride and finally ask Carina for his name, but the Sixth Day was very, very busy. He spotted his beloved friend several times throughout the course of those days, making amusing little creatures with no legs, and furry ones with large curling horns, and a precious crawling thing with spots and gills and a tail. Aziraphale wanted very much to catch him and ask about each of his creations, but there was simply no time. At most, he would receive a wave from across the desert, or a quick comment about the difficulties of making wool or the quality of Aziraphale’s posture, but never long enough for Aziraphale to lead into the big question.

And now that there was all manner of animals everywhere, Aziraphale had somewhat of a job to do, warding off curious lions and hippopotamuses and moose from bothering the angels who were forming delicate dragonflies and mice. After all the beasts and creeping things had been made, Aziraphale thought that he might be able to find a moment to spend with Carina, but then it was time for the grand event.

It was time to create humanity.

Aziraphale spent the duration pacing the walls of the garden, making sure nothing came to disturb God and Her chosen few. When the deed was done, he and many others throughout the day came by to catch a glimpse of the humans, who seemed at times so like them, and at other times, so different. 

He found them to be rather sweet. Eve would go exploring and stop whenever she found something interesting to show Adam, and he would collect flowers and help weave them into her hair. They cared for another. It made him glad to be watching over them.

They were fast asleep when Carina came skittering across the top of the wall like a newborn giraffe.

Aziraphale gestured silently for him to come over, bemused by his harried appearance. “Good evening, dear. Why the rush?”

“I got caught up making bats again, didn’t even realize the time. Did you see it? The big event?” he asked, sounding a little breathless. Aziraphale wanted to smooth a hand down his back and remind him that he didn’t really need to breathe, but he kept his hands primly to himself.

“Only the aftermath, but it was still quite beautiful. Look, there they are.”

Carina perched himself on the edge of the wall to peer down at the humans. “They look so...soft. Fragile, somehow. It’s good they’ve got you to watch them.”

“They’re quite well off even without me, but it does feel good to have a proper assignment,” Aziraphale said, readjusting his sword as he sat down beside his angel. “Have you got time to stay tonight? Humans _snore_ when they sleep; it’s endearing.”

“No, sorry, I’ve got to jet. I- I wanted to see you and the humans before I left for the day. Love to stay, but I’m being called back to head office. Something about those of us in the amphibian program; I don’t know, it sounds like some kind of red tape issue. We could meet tomorrow?” He paused, wings tucked in but fluttering a bit anxiously, as if he didn’t want to disappoint Aziraphale, who waved him on despite that disappointment.

“Yes- no worries, I know you must be drowning in work right now.”

“I’ll meet you by your plant cluster.”

“I’ll be waiting for you there.”

There passed a brief moment where neither of them moved, and on Aziraphale’s part, it was because he still had so many words he wanted to say. He wanted to know Carina’s name, but he also wanted so much more. He wanted to know every part of the other angel, he wanted to memorize everything that made him who he was.

He wanted to understand exactly what this feeling was that was painted onto each of his atoms, because it felt a whole lot like love, but _more_. Aziraphale knew love: he was born from it, and he would know it in his bones no matter its form, and yet he still couldn’t describe the depth of the emotion he felt when he saw his angel. 

Carina was his first friend, his best friend, and sometimes it felt like he was something else too. Something Aziraphale didn’t have the words for.

“Tomorrow, then,” he said, after swallowing down all his half-formed thoughts, hoping that by then he would be able to piece together everything he wanted to say.

With a slow nod, Carina stood and spread his wings— darkly comforting under the light of the moon. “Goodnight, Aziraphale.”

\--

Tomorrow did not come. For tomorrow was the Seventh Day, and on the Seventh Day God rested, and on the Seventh Day came the Fall.

Aziraphale couldn’t have anticipated the Fall. No one, save for God, had seen it coming. That the brightest of them could tumble so violently from grace was inconceivable, and yet it had happened anyway.

Was this in the divine plan? The delineation of good and evil?

There was Heaven and Earth, and now there too was Hell. Lucifer had taken with him countless scores of angels: those whose ambition had grown too large, or whose thoughts had turned a shade too dark, or who had simply asked too many questions about the plan.

The fallout seemed eternal, and Aziraphale was exhausted every day to find that another angel he knew had gone over to the other side. Everywhere he looked, there were empty spaces left behind by people he used to greet in the mornings and wave off at night.

He spent long hours thinking about Carina, and whether he’d simply been reassigned to another sector of the universe, some faraway galaxy to oversee the birth and death of new stars. Because he couldn’t have Fallen.

Not him.

If someone like Aziraphale’s crow-plumed angel — who was clever and curious, who burned with brilliant potential and laughed when he sprouted new blooms and forged stars that glowed with all the love the Almighty had given him — if someone could be so _good_ and still Fall...

...then how could Aziraphale ever stand a chance of not doing the same?

He was but a simple guard. A Principality, sure, but all he did was stand around and follow orders that didn’t lead anywhere and wonder at the beauty of things others had created.

Was his continued grace a mistake? Or some kind of test? Was it only a matter of time before he joined his dearest friend on the other side of the great divide?

Aziraphale thought constantly about how things could have been different, if perhaps he had known what was to come. Could he have warned Carina? Set him on a better path? But already he found it difficult to know where Carina had strayed, for hadn’t he followed every one of Her instructions as well as he could? Hadn’t She seen the love with which he formed every precious creation?

Hadn’t She understood how _remarkable_ he was?

Shouldn’t She have loved him half as much as Aziraphale did?

Aziraphale had to try very hard to stop thinking about these things whenever one of the other angels passed by, because they all looked so forlorn and lost and angry, and he feared that if he continued down this path, he too could find himself hurtling down through the firmament and the earth, down into the sulfur and the fire. Because he wasn’t certain that he was naturally good enough to remain on Heaven’s side. He wasn’t certain he _deserved_ to stay here among his brethren when so many others who he had thought good, fine angels, had been lost to temptation.

He would have to make an effort. He couldn’t give Heaven a reason to doubt his loyalty. He didn’t know if it helped or not that none of the other angels socialized with him much, too busy scrambling to fill the gaps in their ranks and fortify their defenses in case Hell should get any ideas, but even when they spoke to him, he didn’t feel any less alone.

  


After the reassignments, Aziraphale was placed at the Eastern Gate. To guard, of course, because that was his role. It was a job that actually served some purpose now, since there were animals beyond the walls of the garden, as well as agitators, agents for the other side. Wily ones.

Aziraphale spent his days staring out past the horizon of sand, and at some moments, looking down into the garden to be sure the humans were still safe and contained.

He spent his nights looking at the stars.

Nice day after nice day passed in such a fashion, because there still wasn’t _really_ much to guard from, even after all that hullabaloo from upstairs. He watched the sand. He watched the stars. The other angels remained in Heaven, above it all.

And then, one day, a serpent entered the garden.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: this fic is an unholy mix of book and tv canon, so certain scenes might not play out exactly the way they did in either form! I hope you enjoy it regardless!! Infinite thanks to the lovely [mozaikmage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mozaikmage/pseuds/mozaikmage) for looking over this chapter! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

There were clouds in the east. They were grouping up quite rapidly, and with them came the tang of ozone and a shift in pressure that sat heavily on Aziraphale’s wings. A storm was building: the first in creation.

A storm was building, the humans were on the loose, Aziraphale was swordless, and a demon had wormed his way up to the Eastern Gate, so all in all it was about time the Almighty smote Aziraphale down for his collection of misdeeds.

The serpent was changing form beside him, but Aziraphale could only concentrate on the minute forms of Adam and Eve forging their way forward across the barren desert. They looked so small, so alone. Fragile, unlike him, which is why the sword idea had seemed such a good one at the time, but he was already second-guessing that too.

But the universe moved in mysterious and predetermined ways. If only Aziraphale could be privy to the workings of the Great Plan as well. If only the whole thing didn’t have to be so damn _ineffable_.

And now, this. An Enemy, right here at Aziraphale’s outpost. Perhaps he should have been squaring himself up for a fight, but he hadn’t any weapons at his disposal anymore, and he certainly wasn’t in the right emotional state to punch a demon in the face today. Maybe when God struck Aziraphale from existence, She would take the demon as an incidental casualty as well. 

He was about to mention this possibility to his new companion, in case he might not want to chance imminent destruction, but he was immediately sidetracked by a startling discovery.

The demon had black wings.

Aziraphale was surprised to see wings at all, since the fellow was a snake but seven seconds ago, and then he did a double take when he took note of their color. He’d only known a few angels with purely black wings, and none as striking as these except for Carina, and he was-

Was here. Now. 

Carina was _here_. Standing at the gate next to Aziraphale, with those golden eyes and that familiar voice, wearing a rough looking robe and saying something that Aziraphale couldn’t parse because _he_ was _here_ and exactly the same in all the ways that hurt.

And different in all the ways that drove the knife in deeper.

Aziraphale felt something inside of himself unravel as he tried to reconcile the sight of the person before him with the memory of the person he thought he’d lost. It felt like he was discorporating from the inside out, especially when his eyes met the demon’s.

His best friend. His favorite angel, only, not so angelic anymore. That...that _verve_ , that bright-eyed curiosity, that quiet joy that he used to express in every gesture, that pure, unselfish love that colored each of his actions...it wasn’t like it was all completely lost, but it had been muted. Dampened. Hidden under a smoggy layer of cunning and slick impiety. Aziraphale could feel that the angel he had known— 

the person he had _loved_

—was not gone so much as transformed. Like a tadpole after the metamorphosis, or a river that had run free of its original bed, carving new ground as it changed its course.

Carina — or, not-Carina, really, because whatever his name had been before the Fall would be lost now, and maybe it was only right that Aziraphale’s name for him be left behind as well — not-Carina was here, and had apparently learned to be a serpent in his spare time, the humans had been cast out, Aziraphale’s sword was gone, and everything was terrible. It seemed like all that ever happened these days was people daring to want too much and Falling from grace. He had a persistent suspicion that he might be next.

“I’m sorry, what was it you were saying?” he finally asked, brain still two steps behind his mouth, and not-Carina replied, “I said, that one went down like a lead balloon.’”

The usual wryness in his voice was turned up two notches, and his eyes were now slit vertically like one of his snakes’, but, God preserve him, he was still so _himself_ that Aziraphale ached. What kind of infernal magic was this?

There were so many things he wanted to say, that he’d been rehearsing in his mind in case they ever found each other again. _Every day I searched the halls of Heaven for you, and then I searched the sands, the stars. Every day I missed you the way hydrogen misses oxygen. Every day I looked upon your creations and found your beauty and your brightness in each and every one._

“Oh. Yes,” Aziraphale replied numbly instead, trying to seek out any sense of recognition in not-Carina’s eyes as he fumbled for the words he really wanted. But not-Carina was only acting as familiar as he’d been when they’d first met, with a casual sort of geniality. There was no spark of recognition, no sign that Aziraphale was in any way familiar to him. None of the iridescent glow in his eyes when their gazes met, nor the sharp curve of the smile that used to form around his words.

It was as if they’d never known each other at all.

“I think it was a bit of an overreaction, to be honest,” not-Carina was saying, his tone conversational and faintly inquisitive in a way that felt too much like a memory. “First offense and everything.” He turned back to Aziraphale to murmur, almost conspiratorially, “I can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway.”

The wind was picking up. The storm was closing in, and the question of good and evil was one that Aziraphale hadn’t found an answer to during his endless musings on the subject. Not-Carina apparently hadn’t either, despite suffering an impossible loss because he had learned too much. 

Had evil always existed? Had God created it as part of Her divine will? Or had it been the fault of angels who did not know when to stop reaching, wanting, asking? Were those angels all meant to become demons from the very start? Was there always some seed of evil buried in the love that composed them?

Now that Carina was a demon, did any of that love remain?

He wanted to know, more than anything, what was left of his angel. 

But Aziraphale had already crossed enough lines. He could already feel his resolve quaking under the weight of all his questions, and he knew he couldn’t continue this way. He needed to accept the new world order, lest he lose himself too, so he took in an unnecessary breath and told himself that no matter who he thought he was talking to, he needed to remember that everything was different now. His best friend had been lost to him, changed into someone else in the same skin. He could not be so familiar. He could not hold on to hope that would only hurt them both.

Through his parched throat and sandpaper tongue, he said, “Well, it must _be_ bad,” before trailing off, both at a loss for how to explain why there could be no other answer, and because he wasn’t sure how to address his companion.

_It must be bad, otherwise I never would have lost you._

“Crawly,” not-Carina said, and Aziraphale swallowed thickly before continuing. A name. After everything, finally a name. Not one he was expecting, but one he would have to use nonetheless, for this stranger-friend, this once-beloved-someone. 

“Crawly, right. Otherwise...well, otherwise, you wouldn’t have been involved.” 

Crawly shrugged off this minor accusation, and said he was only told to go cause trouble. In return, Aziraphale implied that all demons did was spread evil, which was perhaps a stronger statement than he intended, but one he would have to stick by from here on out. Even if seeing Crawly made him want to do anything but that.

But Crawly took no offense. He turned back to watch the clouds rolling in and brought up the lack of sense in leaving a forbidden tree right within reach of the impressionable humans, and oh, if Aziraphale didn’t agree just the tiniest bit, but it wouldn’t do to say so out loud. 

“Best not to speculate, really. It’s all part of the Great Plan,” he said, hoping to channel half as much certainty on the matter that Gabriel did. Archangels always seemed very assured about things. It was a little bit exhausting. “It’s ineffable, and you can’t second-guess ineffability, I always say.” As of now. If he repeated it enough, he would come to believe it, right?

“The Great Plan’s ineffable?” Crawly made a face, one that made Aziraphale’s heart sing with fondness, but his attention was directed elsewhere, around Aziraphale’s midsection. “Didn’t you have a flaming sword?” he asked in the middle of the half-baked spiel about ineffability.

“Er,” Aziraphale managed to say, which wasn’t very articulate, but was leagues ahead of what he wanted to screech instead. Because if Crawly remembered Aziraphale’s sword, then it stood to reason that he remembered _Aziraphale_ , and if he remembered Aziraphale but couldn’t — or just plain didn’t — have any kind of affection, or attachment, or even the slightest inkling of an emotion toward him, then.

Well. Then Aziraphale would finally give up, once and for all, on these lingering feelings. 

“You did, didn’t you? It was flaming like anything,” Crawly said, looking Aziraphale over as if he were a mystery, but nothing more. The knife twisted deeper into his heart.

“Uh, well...”

“It looked very impressive, I thought. What happened to it?”

“Ah, mm.”

“Lost it already, have you?”

“Gave it away,” Aziraphale finally muttered, when this line of inquiry seemed like it would never end. Bless Crawly and his damnable curiosity.

The look of utter shock that overtook Crawly’s face was uncalled for. As if he had any right to be surprised by Aziraphale when he might not even remember him. “You _what?_ ” 

“I gave it away! There are vicious animals,” Aziraphale cried out, thinking about the once-tame lions and sharks and mosquitoes that were now wild and dangerous. Even Crawly’s darling viper had turned treacherous. “It's going to be cold out there. And she's expecting already,” he continued helplessly, trying to remember every justification that had been running through his mind at the time. There had been so many. He’d said before that he would save the accursed sword for someone who really needed it, and if the humans didn’t need it, then who ever would?

Crawly’s shock was quickly unfolding into delight as Aziraphale continued babbling, and that set off a deep twinge in Aziraphale’s chest, because the last time he’d seen Crawly look that way at anything was when they’d discussed armadillos in passing on the Sixth Day. (“They have their own armor! This one makes identical quadruplets! _This_ one can roll into a ball!”)

“I do hope I didn’t do the wrong thing,” Aziraphale finally finished, feeling even more anguished over the whole matter than before.

Shaking his head, Crawly said, “Oh, you’re an angel. I don’t think you _can_ do the wrong thing.” With his tone of voice it was hard to tell if he was being sarcastic, but he didn’t look insincere, and the words did help soothe some of Aziraphale’s nerves.

They watched Adam try to fend off a lion with the flaming sword, and Aziraphale was almost starting to feel less stressed about everything until Crawly started posing more worrying hypotheticals, but the first droplets of rain finally fell to the earth and stopped that conversation before it could get carried away. A branch of lightning struck down in the distance, startling them both.

As if instinctively, Crawly scooched a step closer to Aziraphale, who, also instinctively, lifted a wing to shield him from the rain that he was looking at with a mixture of alarm and wonder.

“This is new,” he said as he watched the rain trickle down Aziraphale’s wings. “I guess this finally explains why your lot bothered to keep some waters above.” For a second, his gaze caught on Aziraphale’s white feathers and he seemed pensive, as if trying to recall something, but then Aziraphale reflexively flicked his wings to shake the rain off, and the moment was lost. Crawly held out a hand to catch one of the falling droplets in his palm. “I think I like it. Blue was getting a bit boring, anyway.” He glanced back upward at the stormcloud sky and a crooked smile settled on his lips, with just a hint of that incandescent light that Aziraphale wasn’t sure he’d ever see again.

Perhaps Aziraphale had not lost him after all.

\--

Life on Earth was arduous, in those first few millennia. A lot of toil for humans, a lot of hard living and some moving around. Aziraphale watched as they learned to build, to craft, to tame, to grow. They carved. They sang. He had always held a soft spot for them from the very beginning, but he came to see them as clever, enterprising creatures. As bright as someone he once knew. (Still knew.)

Humans struggled. They loved. They fought. They were punished for their sins, and each time, Crawly would find his way onto the scene, watching with deep sadness hidden behind a perplexed expression and some diverting repartee. It took Aziraphale a good many years before he could be certain of what he was seeing.

He first noticed as they waited for the great flood, as Crawly looked upon the children who would not be allowed onto the ark. 

“Even the _kids_ ,” he muttered as the storm began. “That can’t be right.” 

“It’s- it isn’t our place to question it, Crawly,” Aziraphale stuttered, but his heart wasn’t in it. Heaven wasn’t wiping out all the humans, just this group here, but it still felt _cruel_. How could violence be used to teach humanity not to commit violence? He felt that perhaps he was missing an important piece of the memo.

Around them, the rain came down harder. Crawly hitched up his robes and glared at the sky. For a second, Aziraphale caught sight of a glittering hardness beneath everything else, like an ember still burning in the ash, and he realized for the first time that he had never really considered Crawly’s feelings toward Heaven.

“I don’t know about that— I’ve always been a questions kind of guy.” Rainwater began pooling at his feet and his dark expression turned darker. “I’m not certain I’m a fan any more,” he said, shaking the rain out of his hair, before lifting a hand to bid Aziraphale farewell. “Excuse me, I need to- there’re some...temptations I need to get to. See you in a few, Aziraphale. Good luck with the sword business if it comes up again.”

Aziraphale watched him slip away into the crowd, and then back up at the hull of the ark, which was both impossibly large and too, too small to save all those who needed saving. This was one of Heaven’s commands, and Aziraphale had been more or less assigned to bear witness, but he could not stand to stay. Before taking his leave he cast a small miracle, just the tiniest one. He spread a gentle suggestion that the crowd head toward higher ground, like the rise of the hills to the east, and make camp there until the rains subsided. When he saw the majority begin to march toward the hills in question, he left as well, knowing there was no more he could do under Heaven’s watching eyes. It was probably about time he went to check up on the Upper and Lower Egypt situation, or visited the Yangtze River to see how the farming was going over there. The world was vast and humanity was learning more and more each day.

(In a few years, Aziraphale would return to the region and find that, despite the deluge, there was still quite the population living in the area. He had his suspicions about what Crawly might have gotten up to that day, but he never got a straight answer out of the serpent.)

\--

Aziraphale ran into Crawly several times after that in Akkad, in Babylon, in Zhenxun, in Pataliputra. They bickered gently about questionable policy decisions while dynasties crumbled and empires were forged. Crawly was always the one to approach Aziraphale, because he had a tendency to wind in and out of crowds like...like a snake, to be honest. It was easy for him to get the drop on Aziraphale, who apparently would have made a terrible guard after all.

Crawly would slink his way up to Aziraphale with a smile and a question, and despite knowing better, Aziraphale would fall right into conversation with him. Call it a bad habit. Because, for one, Crawly was funny and sly and knew exactly how to sow an incredible amount of minor irritation in a population.

“A strategically placed rock does wonders to a wheeled cart, did you know? And a cart’s worth of olives rolling every which way on the path to market does so easily ruin so many mornings,“ Crawly explained as they watched people arguing in the middle of the road on the way to the agora. “Oh, mmn, he didn’t think that one through,” he said, pointing at the man who was regretting the fight he just picked.

Aziraphale tried very hard not to show any more amusement, because if anyone were looking he wanted to have plausible deniability. He shouldn’t have let himself get suckered into another conversation at all, but Crawly had been so eager and secretive when he told Aziraphale to watch closely, his voice so heartbreakingly familiar that Aziraphale hadn’t the willpower to look away. And the deed was both so innocuous and so annoying that he hadn’t been able to help the tiny laugh it shocked out of him. 

“Are you certain you should be showing me your little tricks?”

Crawly tilted his head as he thought about it. A few feet to the left, a young woman tripped over a cluster of olives and fell into the brush. “Well, consssider it an advantage. Now you know how best to thwart me.”

“By strengthening all the wheels in Athens?”

“That would be a good start.”

“Yes, and then you’ll somehow knock over all the market stands or jam up an aqueduct or something. I should chase you out of the city completely.”

Crawly let out a huff. “That’s going a bit far, don’t you think? Is this because of the philosophers? I told you, I didn’t even say much to him; Socrates did all the rest of that on his own.”

“I’m not sore about the philosophers. It’s just very busy when you’re out here wreaking havoc. Well, not havoc. Wreaking inconvenience.”

“Sorry, but the humans do most of the heavy lifting themselves. Is your work piling up? If you want help, you should ask.”

Aziraphale gave him a confounded look. “Are you offering? You can’t.”

“I could maybe- no, you’re right, I can’t do your job for you. Wait,” Crawly said, looking thoughtful. “Can I?” He sounded almost serious.

“Of course not! I would never demand that of you,” Aziraphale sputtered. “You just keep to your wiles. I can’t start expecting you to turn out miracles.”

“No,” Crawly replied mildly, reaching out a hand to touch the leaves of a nearby cypress. “That would be odd, wouldn’t it?”

  


It was too easy for Aziraphale to get tied up in Crawly’s web of trickery and minor sins, and it didn’t help at all that he genuinely seemed to enjoy hearing about (and poking fun at) Aziraphale’s everyday miracles and tiny blessings.

“Did you just- now, wait a second. That can’t be allowed.” Crawly sneered as the child picked himself back up off the ground, unscathed. They were sat under the shade of an avocado tree, watching as the boy ran off in the direction of the Coatzacoalcos to join his friends.

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “I thought you quite liked children. Did you really want me to kill him?”

“Of course I don’t want you to kill him, but at the very least a broken arm is in order! How else is he going to learn not to jump from high places?”

“Oh, settle down, I left a few bruises. He’ll have plenty of years to learn that lesson later, but his sister is going to be born today, and it’ll be enough of a production without a broken arm to deal with too.”

“You’re too soft on them,” Crawly said accusingly, as if Aziraphale hadn’t seen him slipping sweet potatoes to the little rascals just one day earlier.

“That’s my job, now, isn’t it? Even without your side tempting them, tarnishing their souls, they have it hard enough. The least I could give is a little kindness once in a while. It encourages them to do the same.”

Crawly leaned his face into his palm and made a thoughtful noise. “ _Is_ it your job, though? Is any other angel in Heaven as lax on humanity as you are? Your side is quite the fan of sweeping punishments and big statements. Pillars of salt, plague of locusts, and the like. You know what happens when they aren’t happy upstairs.” 

Aziraphale did know. Three days of darkness. Enough rainwater to drown the world. The Fall.

Hell’s wheelhouse was torture, but nobody did divine punishment the way Heaven did.

“I- ah. Perhaps I am a bit soft.” And wasn’t that a sobering thought. Aziraphale wasn’t even particularly kind to humans most days, and he was still possibly the nicest angel on Earth at the moment.

“It’s not the worst thing you could be, angel,” Crawly said casually, bumping Aziraphale with his shoulder as he stood, stretching his back like a cat after a long nap. Aziraphale was left mildly reeling, first from the easy physical contact, and second, from the nickname. The way Crawly said it, “angel” felt almost like a term of endearment, instead of simply a name for what he was. 

What stuck in Aziraphale’s mind the most, though, was how Crawly used the term as a way to differentiate them. Aziraphale was an angel. Crawly was not.

It wasn’t that Aziraphale had any hope of reversing what had happened. Carina had Fallen. Carina was no more. There was only one direction their kind went, and that was downwards. Once broken, never restored. The day Crawly ceased to be a demon was the day he ceased to be altogether.

There was no forgiveness for the Fallen. But it was so hard to let go.

Crawly had Carina’s laugh, his sense of humor, his enthusiasm for green, growing things. Crawly was also sharper around the edges, glib where Carina had been excitable, slightly devil-may-care about his duties where Carina had loved every moment of his job. He was enough of his old self to keep Aziraphale stuck like a fish on a hook, and enough of a new person to be worth trying to know. It was all a bit frustrating. 

Worst of all, he never showed any sign that he had ever known Aziraphale in any way other than he did now. And though Aziraphale knew better, it still hurt to be forgotten. Especially when he knew he could never, ever do the same.

\--

Aziraphale saw it again, that bone-deep sadness, when the young carpenter was martyred. By now Crawly had become Crowley, which was a name that was more difficult to adjust to than Aziraphale wanted to let on. It was too reminiscent of black feathers and conversations by moonlight.

He and Crowley stood side by side during the crucifiction, and this time Aziraphale did not look away. He had a feeling that this would mark another landmark shift in human history, though it could be difficult to tell with humanity sometimes. It really was unpredictable, the people and ideals they kept in their collective consciousness.

By the time he glanced back at his side, Crowley had gone, and would remain gone for another eight years. When he found him again, Crowley had taken to hiding his golden eyes behind shaded spectacles, and was in a rather sour mood. For once Aziraphale had the chance to approach him first, and though it involved a silly slip of the tongue, he was able to convince Crowley to join him for lunch.

It wasn’t their first time eating together, but it was the first time they’d done so openly at an establishment, instead of just sitting on rooftops or hanging around a marketplace, eating while on the job. It was a nice change of pace.

“My dear, do you actually enjoy your meal?” Aziraphale asked when Crowley swallowed yet another morsel whole and chased it with a generous swig of wine. They had been eating for the better part of an hour now, and Crawly was finally looking a little less down.

“Probably not as much as you do yours,” Crowley replied, either not noticing, or not caring that Aziraphale had accidentally called him “dear.” It made Aziraphale’s life both easier and harder.

“Oh- would you prefer we went somewhere else? Oysters aren’t to everyone’s taste-”

“Nah, the food’s not the problem. I think you enjoy eating more than any immortal I’ve ever met. I mean, I like it well enough, but it’s hard to match your zeal. Anyway, I’m more a fan of sleeping, these days.”

“Sleeping?” Aziraphale asked, astonished at the thought. It seemed such a waste of valuable time.

“ ‘s what I’ve been doing for the last two years. You should give it a try. There’s nothing like following up a meal with a good, long nap.” He was already starting to look a little drowsy. Melancholy too, if Aziraphale was reading his expression correctly. The new glasses made it hard to tell.

“Sleeping. Well. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try. Are- are you going to be able to make it back home like this?” Crowley was starting to list over to one side; the wine was probably a contributing factor.

“Hm? Me? Yep, all fine. Jussst going to take a little doze here...”

“Oh no, not in the middle of the- Crawly! Ugh, no- Crowley! Alright, come on.” Aziraphale threw down enough coin to cover them both, and then hefted his companion to his feet, dragging him out the door. He hoped nobody would be witness to this. Crowley was going on about volcanoes all the while, something about being dormant. It took a painstaking amount of actual walking to get to Crowley’s little abode, where Aziraphale was finally able to deposit him on his fancy wooden bed. The demon immediately curled up into a ball and muttered something about sleeping another five years off; Aziraphale watched him with a mix of pity and amusement. 

“Why don’t you sober up first? You’ll have a terrible hangover if you drift off like this.”

“Sober up? Whazzat mean?” Crowley demanded, squinting up at Aziraphale from his bed. He was scrunched up so tight that Aziraphale thought it might behoove him to turn back into a snake for the time being.

“You know, clear the mind. Clean up the bloodstream. Take the alcohol back out.”

“...you can do that?”

“...are you telling me you just stay drunk every time we imbibe? You just...wait for it to metabolize?”

“I didn’t know there were other options,” Crowley hissed, looking sleepy and wretched. Aziraphale wanted suddenly to lie down beside him, to recreate that closeness they once had, lying there in the sand. He would even try sleeping if it meant feeling Carina’s warmth next to him again, his angel’s hand entwined with his own.

The thought was so inappropriate that he had to take a step back, to introduce some physical distance between them as he shook himself out of his fantasy. This was Crowley, not his long-lost angel. 

And what Aziraphale wanted was but a delusion. A stupid wish that could never come to pass, that was never meant to be anything more than a daydream. He was conflating the feelings he had for someone who would never again exist with the strange brand of antagonism that he shared with Crowley. But they weren’t the same. He was just drunk and confused. 

It took a moment to steady his footing, pull himself out of his intoxication, and pick up the conversation where it left off.

“Goodness, my dear boy, how have you been living all these years? Look, just reach in and...take the alcohol out. I’ll even do it for you this time.” He snapped his fingers and watched as Crowley made a baffled face and then sat up straight.

“Hm. You really just- huh. That’ll definitely help with the headaches.”

“I would imagine. Enjoy your nap, Cra- Crowley,” Aziraphale said, already headed for the door. He needed to leave before he dreamt up any other poisonous thoughts.

“See you in a decade or two, angel,” Crowley said, already lying down again. Aziraphale fled and made sure at least three decades passed before their paths crossed, hoping that the distance would help him sort out his mixed-up emotions.

\--

It did not.

Crowley caught Aziraphale trying to spread peace among the Franks, the Huns, and the Berbers. He was often in town to do the exact opposite, and they found themselves commiserating over the scope of human choices and how messy free will made everything. 

They dined together in Palmyra, in Bonn, in Ife. They walked along the Mississippi and the Murrumbidgee and the Zambezi, discussing all the odd forms of entertainment humans came up with. Games with little stone pieces and leather balls, instruments of wood and string, scrolls and tablets and codexes for writing words and records and stories. That last one interested Aziraphale the most, especially tomes full of prophecies. He had begun something of a collection. Crowley admitted he wasn’t sure he understood the appeal, but he listened to Aziraphale’s ramblings on the subject anyway.

In between miracles and curses they would socialize, because there was never anyone else around who understood the way they did. There were other angels and demons roaming the Earth, of course, but they approached their craft in a much different way, and then hopped back home immediately after the job was done. It was hard enough to discuss work with them, let alone leisure. Only Crowley ever seemed to stop and enjoy the world as it passed them by. Only Crowley seemed to take as much pleasure from the almost-human experience as Aziraphale did. As loathe as Aziraphale was to admit it, they understood one another.

“It was impressive from a demonic standpoint,” Crowley was saying, as he continued packing his clump of snow into a ball. The storm had begun about an hour prior, but the priest Aziraphale was waiting for hadn’t come out for his walk yet. “I don’t much care for maths, but I think his al-jabr thing will pan out well for my side eventually.”

Aziraphale was watching the snow settle on distant fields, and he turned back to face Crowley after hearing this. “Really?” he asked, feeling dubious. “I thought mathematics were usually one of ours. It’s all structure and truth and that sort of thing.”

Snow dotted Crowley’s hair and shoulders, and he shivered before frowning. “Mixed bag, then.” They both nodded. Crowley rolled his snow lump in his hands until it finally resembled a ball, and then sneezed right after.

“I think that’s enough cold for one day,” Aziraphale said, amused by the way Crowley hunched in on himself after going through another full-body shudder. He was already bundled to the nines. “Shouldn’t you be hibernating?”

“No time, there’s someone in the next village over that needs convincing to steal a cow. Evil never rests.”

“So says the one exception.” He watched as Crowley put his snow spheroid atop a misshapen lump he’d made earlier and then carefully attached two stones for eyes. “What fine creature is this?”

“Snow camel, of course.”

“...I think you’ve forgotten the neck.”

Crowley frowned at his not quite camel. “So I have,” he said, before sneezing again. Aziraphale wasn’t sure how such an absurd noise could be so endearing.

“Oh, just- here, at least take this with you, before you wind up dead asleep in some poor chap’s stable,” Aziraphale said, exasperated, as he unwound his own wool scarf and dropped it into Crowley’s hands. Crowley made a face at its pale color, but wound it around his own neck with a knot too fashionable for a cattle thief. Aziraphale’s priest finally made his appearance soon afterward, so Aziraphale bid the demon goodbye. Crowley was still sculpting his snow creature when Aziraphale turned back to look, but he’d stopped shivering.

  


A few hundred years went on in this way, and certain expectations came to pass. An Arrangement, if one could call it that. 

Aziraphale tried to resist it at first, because he hadn’t shaken the idea that he was a few steps away from a good smiting, but Crowley was both persistent and convincing, and Aziraphale had learned that angels were also quite capable of feeling tired too. 

Crowley first brought it up in Wessex, and then again when Aziraphale was trying to figure out what was going down between Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo. Aziraphale held out against the suggestion until one day there was some nonsense assignment he was supposed to complete in the Holy Roman Empire and Crowley came slithering along to mention, “You know, I’m headed there tomorrow anyway. What do you need done? A miraculous survival? A smidgen of goodwill?”

“I don’t need anything from _you_ ,” Aziraphale said, trying to wave him away. He was trying to enjoy his congee in peace, and here was Crowley flitting around all cheerful and distracting. He had done something with his hair recently, and it accentuated his cheekbones. How deeply dreadful.

The slight moue that Crowley made with his mouth before plowing on was also dreadful. “Are you sure? I know you’ve been waiting on the movable type demonstration for weeks now, and Bi Sheng’s about to-”

“Yes, I _know_ , Crowley, but I can’t- I can’t simply stop doing my job whenever I feel like it!”

“Ah, but this is different! You’re not shirking your duties. The job is still getting done. Who’s doing it doesn’t matter to the head office. They just want results. Not that we’re really getting results, seeing as it all evens out in the end- but! What matters is that they know somebody did something. I’d be willing to be that somebody this time around, if you’ll pick up the next one.”

Aziraphale should have refused, but he really had been looking forward to the printing demonstration forever now, and Crowley had brought up many good points over the last few years that neither Heaven nor Hell had ever refuted. Was anyone upstairs or downstairs even actually reading their reports? Why was it that a demon, the _Enemy_ , seemed to resonate with Aziraphale more than his own people? Did anyone even actually _care?_ About anything, other than the optics and the numbers? Aziraphale had his doubts, even though he knew by now to think them very quietly to only himself.

“Fine, I accept,” he finally muttered before he could stop and make a sensible decision instead. “I’ll owe you one for next time. Thank you.” Crowley smiled sharply at him with a glimmer of that supernova radiance and Aziraphale felt his breath hitch. Why he even bothered breathing, he wasn’t sure.

“Oh, no, thank _you_ , angel. Here, lunch is on me.”

\--

Aziraphale wouldn’t have found the whole thing as stressful if he didn’t feel so natural doing a spot of temptation every couple of years. It didn’t put him out at all to put suggestive thoughts in people’s heads, or to start up something trivial that made life just a little worse, like papercuts, or uneven cobbling. He was worryingly good at being bad. 

The Arrangement worked almost too well, and Aziraphale was beginning to grow concerned over just how much time he and Crowley spent either together or aiding one another.

It definitely wasn’t helping him move on from the confusing feelings he was developing.

They ate together. They watched plays and the occasional sporting event together — Crowley was fond of the ones that involved sticks of any kind. They talked and drank and laughed and generally spent far too much time in one another’s company, so much so that they had made up a list of hundreds of places around the world for clandestine meetings.

Crowley eventually took up residence in London because “it’s got a large concentration of people making others miserable, and it’d be convenient for me to be on hand to help.” (He never openly came out and said it, but Aziraphale knew he liked targeting the misery-makers more than the downtrodden, though he would go for the deeds that had the greatest area of effect when he could.) Aziraphale finally moved his book collection there as well because it was easier for their purposes if they each had a home base in the same city. The decision wasn’t based solely on Crowley’s location; there were plenty of things he liked about London. But Crowley’s proximity didn’t hurt any.

And that was the problem. 

Aziraphale had grown attached again. 

For a long while, he couldn’t help but focus on all the similarities between Crowley and Carina, because there were enough that it was impossible to forget. If Crowley had been just the empty husk of who he used to be, it might have felt easier. But he was still full of life and wonder and humor, and it was difficult not to remember what it used to be like.

He approached conversation with Aziraphale the exact same way, just swooping in out of nowhere to tangle Aziraphale up in his life again. On occasion, the line between past and present would blur.

“-and you know how they love their caffeine. I still can’t believe you haven’t tried coffee yet. The taste is somewhat-”

“ _-strange to me, but the koalas go crazy for it. Maybe we should’ve had them eat something else too; we put an awful lot of toxins in that one..._ ”

“-go try sometime. With dessert, if you’d like.”

  


_“I thought I would enjoy volcanoes more. Like a more exciting mountain, you know? But they’re-”_

“-very draining to climb, even with the donkey. Perhaps it’s _because_ of the donkey? I could do it the easy way, but folks don’t take kindly to you just zapping off by yourself and appearing at the top without them. I think they think it’s cheating. Or witchcraft.”

“ _-but I do think making new islands is a fun little side effect. What a way to automate the process!”_

  


“Look, angel, have you ever seen-”

_“-the way a jellyfish swims? Can you believe this ridiculous thing? 95% water and 5% tentacles, and some of them sting!! I have to hand it to Uriel, this is inspired.”_

“-and it shoots even more arrows than before. I reported it as a success, but they were already most of the way to inventing the thing before I came along.”

“Mm,” Aziraphale responded, trying not to think about the way the seafoam had felt against his bare feet as he and Carina had watched the jellyfish bob through the glass-green sea. They’d each picked out one that reminded them of the other person. Carina had said Aziraphale was like _Phyllorhiza punctata_ ; Aziraphale had chosen _Chrysaora melanaster_ for him in return.

Crowley leaned into his space, disrupting Aziraphale’s train of thought. “You alright, there? You’re looking a little gray.”

“Oh, just thinking about work again,” and it wasn’t quite a lie. “I wouldn’t want the family to split up over something so trivial. After all they’d gone through already.”

“Eh, you’ve done enough for one day. They’re making up already, hugs all around. Look, grandmother over there is getting teary-eyed. Job well done. Fancy a cup of xocolatl before we go?”

“Yes, that- that sounds lovely. I’ll treat you this time,” Aziraphale answered, already letting himself be led away by the arm.

That was another thing: Crowley was thoughtful in the same manner Carina had been. He remembered things even if Aziraphale mentioned them only once, he brought odd snacks and little gifts just because they’d reminded him of Aziraphale, he learned what books were kept where in Aziraphale’s shop just because he thought he ought to. He was a good friend.

Aziraphale tried, in turn, to be supportive whenever Crowley got it into his head he was going to try out some newfangled technological deathtrap, like steamboats and giant wheels. He pointed out small vulnerabilities in carriages and lamps and hanging baskets whenever Crowley looked like he was itching to cause some mischief. He bought his companion dark coats and strange hats, and pointed out the newest styles of tinted glasses whenever they went strolling through shopping quarters.

He was just reciprocating the way a proper friend should (not that he could ever admit to being friends), and in doing so, he failed to keep a safe enough distance. He grew fond of Crowley all over again, and hated the weakness and predictability of his own character for doing so. He hated himself for latching on so tight to the idea of Carina that he couldn’t help but tumble into a terrible affection for his ghost.

Aziraphale watched all these plays and ballets about lost loves, and read heartrending poetry, and thought for a long time that he was just imprinting on Crowley as if he were a shadow or a remnant of Carina, which was both idiotic and unfair. But he eventually realized this was not the case.

For many of his years on Earth, Aziraphale used to think about Carina whenever he laid eyes on any of his creations: the stars, the succulents, the strange sea squirts and salamanders and tsessebe.

The industrious crow, the faithful dove.

But with each passing year, it grew easier to let him go. To let those memories fade into beautiful nostalgia instead of enduring on as phantom regrets. He started remembering his ill-fated trips to the shore with Crowley in 1063 and 1798 whenever he saw the ocean, instead of the memory of Carina standing on the surface and trailing his hand through the water to brush against the sea turtles. Now he thought of his walks through St. James’s Park under the spring foliage whenever he caught a rose in bloom, instead of the verdant flora of Eden.

The sight of a crow perched in a tree, watching the city below, made him think of Crowley and his eternally inquisitive nature, instead of Carina’s midnight feathers. He could look at Crowley and just see the demon he was now, instead of the angel he had once been. He could see Crowley smile at him without the accompanying pang in his chest from knowing that Crowley would never remember smiling at him under the lights of a meteor shower thousands of years before.

All of this meant that at some point over the last five millennia, Aziraphale came to genuinely like Crowley for himself, regardless of who he used to be. 

He liked his complicated walk, his penchant for shiny, useless things, his tendency to change style to match the local humans. He liked that Crowley enjoyed feeding ducks and kept up with astronomical discoveries. He liked that Crowley would run commentary on every new food trend Aziraphale made him try, but would gamely dive right in regardless. He liked that Crowley loved plants but didn’t understand what to do with them, that he couldn’t ride a horse for anything, that on occasion he would forget about his own machinations, not remembering that it was his own fault there was soot on his jacket for starting a minor fire the other day.

He liked that Crowley went stargazing on wide open plains where there was nothing between himself and the night sky. He liked that Crowley made strange noises when he didn’t have the right words, and hissed on occasion as if his tongue were still forked. He liked that Crowley never set foot on consecrated ground, yet knew all about the architectural history of churches and temples and mosques. He liked that Crowley taught himself how to play the bassoon for the sake of infiltrating an orchestra to perform a miracle, instead of just taking the easy way out.

He liked that Crowley was a fair hand at good deeds, and that he cared far too much about humanity for a demon.

Aziraphale had just come to like Crowley a great deal more than he ever intended to. Maybe too much. At least he no longer felt guilty about it. He still loved Carina, and thought wistfully on the life he might have had with his angel by his side, but it no longer ached to think about him. 

Time continued to move forward. Aziraphale slowly learned to move forward too.

\--

It often seemed like Crowley knew exactly how to find Aziraphale no matter where he was on Earth. Not that Aziraphale had ever tried to hide from him, but it still seemed an impressive feat when on occasion he was deployed to the remotest little islands or mountaintops, and Crowley still came meandering by.

He asked about it when they were having a pint together stateside, much to Aziraphale’s chagrin. He had much preferred this continent before the Europeans took to barging in here too.

“My dear, how is it you always know where I am?”

“Ngh?” Crowley asked. He was draped around his chair in such a way that Aziraphale could easily tip him over and knock him flat if he desired. Instead, he put a hand out to stabilize his friend.

“I was just thinking about how you so often manage to find me even when we haven’t arranged a meeting.”

“Oh, that? That’s because you have a sssort of...aura to you that’s easy to pinpoint. You can sense the others, can’t you?”

Aziraphale nodded. All immortal beings burst with a holy (or unholy) energy, a kind of impossible light, that mortals did not possess. Angels tended to feel colder, and demons usually carried with them a general sense of evil, and left it behind wherever they went, but from afar it was quite difficult to know who was who. He might know that someone of their kind was doing something in Sweden at the moment, but be unable to gather any specifics unless he headed over there himself.

“Well, it’s like that except, uh- _more_. I look for your ilk, and then I look for you- you've got a certain je ne sais quoi, know what I mean?”

“No? I don’t think I do?”

Crowley frowned, and waved his hand in a twirling motion. “You know, you have- you’re like- like a candle. A warm thing. But a very fancy one. With the wick a tad bit off-center. It’s easy to find you because you stand out, even among all your kind. Well, Michael stands out too, actually, but I usually skip town if Michael’s around.”

Aziraphale listened to this slightly confusing explanation with a patient nod. Being a fancy candle was probably a compliment. “Fair enough. Does this mean- well, it follows that I should be able to find you too, then.”

With a shrug, Crowley finished off his pint. “Yeah, I suppose. Refill?”

“Oh, yes, thank you.” While Crowley ambled away, Aziraphale tried to put a description to Crowley’s energy. He could feel it quite clearly, especially since everyone else in the tavern was human, but he wasn’t certain he could differentiate between Crowley and another demon if he ever got a new body. Crowley was also warm, like sand beneath the sun, and fairly bright but not blinding. A tinge of evil on the surface, sort of like scuff marks on a pair of leather shoes. In the early days of their acquaintance, he might have expected Crowley to feel more...squiggly, but now he was unsurprised by how constant Crowley was. For a demon he was quite flexible, changing with the times as needed, but his core was deeply settled, and Aziraphale could see that in his light. A fixed point. Like Polaris.

He tried to keep the feeling in the back of his mind the next few times they met, and it enabled him to actually sense Crowley for once before the demon could sidle up and surprise him. It was a good deal of fun for Aziraphale, who got to enjoy the slightly disappointed face Crowley made when greeted brightly by someone who expected him.

He held onto it even when they were apart, that north star light, and could eventually get an idea for what continent Crowley was on just by scanning for him. It was nice to be able to close his eyes and sense that Crowley was up to some business in Jayakarta or Halifax. Aziraphale didn’t try to just drop in, since it would be unfortunate to run afoul of some other demons who might be in the area, but he would sometimes search for Crowley and keep his location in his thoughts, just because. 

The first time Aziraphale went to visit was after he had been away from London for quite a stretch of time. Until now he hadn’t been one to come calling without giving notice, but perhaps once would be fine. Like a nice surprise: the kind Crowley sprang on him all the time. He brought with him a gift, as it was only polite to bring a souvenir home after traveling abroad, and because he knew Crowley had recently caught on to the trend of keeping indoor flora. He searched for that familiar glow and eventually found Crowley loitering near a fountain and encouraging the wanton misuse of water.

“Crowley, leave the urchins be,” Aziraphale called at him from a park bench, reveling in the speed at which Crowley spun around at the sound of his voice.

“Is that you, Aziraphale? Didn’t realize you were done in Mexico,” he said as he loped over, hopping like an unbalanced foal over the puddles the children were leaving all over the square.

“Just finished earlier today, and I thought you might be free for an apéritif?”

“Lead the way.” Crowley held out an arm to gesture ahead of him and Aziraphale passed his gift into his open hand. “What’s- is this for me?”

“Just a little souvenir. It’s a cactus! I know you’ve begun an indoor garden-”

“It isn’t a _garden_. They’re plants for the home. Homeplants.” He spun the pot around to look at the plant at all angles, his face lit with soft surprise. Aziraphale thought suddenly of shooting stars and a garden of his own, there at the beginning of the world. Clearing his throat to clear his head, he gave an ornamental wave at the cactus in Crowley’s hands.

“Alright, well, then here is a new homeplant for your collection.”

“ _Opuntia microdasys_ ,” Crowley commented, looking pleased. “Thanks, I hadn’t any cacti yet.”

Aziraphale’s steps faltered for just a moment. This cactus was not one of Carina’s, not that he knew of. Not like the funny round one with pink flowers. Not like the first gift Aziraphale had ever been given. “I didn’t know you were so well-informed about the natural world,” he said hesitantly.

Crowley made a humming noise. The corner of his mouth was upturned just slightly, and he shook his head as if entertained by the plant he was holding. “Hardly anyone sins half as much as a jealous scientist does, angel. I’ve picked up a bit of the lingo along the way. Which reminds me, do you know what else they call this one?” At Aziraphale’s puzzled look, he grinned. “Angel’s wings.”

Aziraphale felt his face grow warm. “Oh! That’s- I didn’t mean anything by it-”

“Stop dithering- I appreciate the irony. C’mon, which direction are we headed?” Crowley asked, nudging him with a bony elbow until he took charge and led them to a popular new restaurant he’d wanted to try.

There, Crowley staunchly ignored any looks or comments they received when the other diners noticed that his cactus also required its own seat at the table.

  


Some years later, on a cool autumn evening, after a complicated job that saved a good hundred people but most certainly muddied a few souls, Aziraphale noticed that Crowley was out somewhere in Australia for no apparent reason. Last he heard, Crowley was supposed to be causing strife in St. Petersburg, so his curiosity was piqued. He still didn’t sweep in on Crowley anywhere as often as Crowley did to him, but it had been a while since they last saw each other.

He took the quick way there instead of bothering with a rocky, interminable boat ride, and found Crowley lying flat in the middle of the desert, staring up at the star sewn sky. The sight of him surrounded by sand and stars struck deep in Aziraphale’s heart, and he needed to take a moment to collect himself before calling out, “Mind some company?” He was impressed that he couldn’t hear his voice faltering at all.

“Aziraphale? I didn’t know you were in town,” Crowley said, craning his neck around to see him. He wasn’t wearing his shaded glasses for once, and for some reason it gave Aziraphale great joy to see his golden eyes again. 

“I wasn’t, but you were, so I thought I might stop by. I have some of those anisettes you like.” He held up the packet of sweets like a question, and smiled when Crowley waved him over.

“Here, come have a lie-down, take a gander at the cosmos with me,” Crowley said, patting the patch of sand beside himself. Aziraphale stood there for a minute, feeling lost. Like he’d gone adrift in an infinite sea. He had known this was one of Crowley’s hobbies, but he had tried not to think too hard on the subject. It felt like poking at an old wound, and now, here he was, realizing that it had never quite healed.

After a while, Crowley noticed him just standing there like an awkward sentinel, and gestured at the sand again. “Come on, angel, a little sand isn’t going to ruin your coat, I promise. Look, I’ll even-” He paused to snap his fingers and nod significantly at Aziraphale’s white coat.

Aziraphale looked at him for a long moment, lying there in his Chesterfield with his hair askew and his pupils dilated wide. Crowley looked completely different and yet utterly the same, and Aziraphale wondered for a moment what it would be like if he could reach back in time and change the course of their history. If he could stop it all from coming apart.

And then he had to make peace with the fact that he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

With sudden exhaustion, he sat on the ground in a heap. The space where his wings should be twinged with a phantom pain. Turning to Crowley, he pushed down all the unbidden memories and said, “I’m not sure how best to do this. Show me?”

If Crowley could hear the tremor in his voice, he did not comment. “It’s simple,” he said, slow and easy as temptation. “Just put yourself horizontal and look up.”

He watched carefully as Aziraphale did so, and then he turned his attention back toward the sky. Aziraphale pretended to do the same but kept watching Crowley instead, memorizing the way his quiet smile unfolded as he traced the paths of constellations across the sky, his hand reaching out as if he wanted to touch them. Aziraphale wanted to bring him to them, wanted him to understand the beauty he helped bring into the world.

“What are you looking at?” Aziraphale finally asked, before he could grow too maudlin for conversation.

“Oh, just a nebula. Look, that one there,” Crowley said, pointing up at a familiar mass of cosmic dust and starlight that Aziraphale would know with all his thousands of eyes closed. “They call it-”

“-the Carina Nebula. I- I’m familiar with this one.”

“Really?” Crowley asked, intrigued. “You were never one for the sciences.”

“Ah, well,” Aziraphale murmured. He was afraid the wound would reopen, but instead it just ached like an old scar during a storm. “I think I may have picked up a few habits from you over the years.”

Crowley opened his mouth as if to speak, and then his attention seemed to catch on something unseen, and his hand came up to scratch at his shoulder blade. His fingers clenched around empty air as if to grasp at something that wasn’t there. Aziraphale was afraid that he would suddenly unfurl his wings and damage his feathers, but he only looked back up at the stars, eyes desperately scanning the sky. Crowley didn’t appear to find what he was looking for, and Aziraphale saw him swallow before putting an affected scowl on.

“Now, don’t go blaming it all on me,” he coughed out, before his voice settled. “If anything, I’ve absorbed too many of _your_ mannerisms. There I was, encouraging some queue-jumping and changing the shop hours in the 7th arrondissement, when I found myself worrying about the state of my cuticles. Can you imagine? _Cuticles_.”

Aziraphale was sorely tempted to ask what just happened, but it would be poor form when Crowley was so tactful about ignoring Aziraphale’s own moments of oddness. “It’s important to take proper care of your hands, Crowley,” he replied, laughing lightly when Crowley continued to scoff.

“Next you’ll be telling me to go antique shopping with you.”

“You might enjoy it, my dear boy. There must be plenty of lovely vases for you to use in your home garden.”

“Again, it isn’t a garden,” Crowley said, with a histrionic sigh. “Speaking of, have you been to Fulham Palace lately? It’s looking much better than it did in 1646, I’ll tell you that...”

Aziraphale had in fact not been to Fulham Palace since the sixteenth century, but he was more than happy to listen to Crowley’s opinions on the trees in the walled garden. He enjoyed listening to Crowley going on about nearly anything.

\--

Their first true argument started over holy water.

They’d had differences of opinion before. It was hard not to, with thousands of years’ worth of subjects to squabble over. But they had never fought until that day at St. James’s Park.

Crowley didn’t often ask for favors; it wasn’t really his style. So when Aziraphale received the slip of paper from him, he hadn’t been prepared for the way those two words would stop his heart. Holy water. For _insurance_. For Crowley to do the deed himself before Hell could have his head.

Aziraphale’s anxiety over the matter made him stupid, made him blurt out hard, meaningless words that didn’t at all express his real problem with Crowley’s request. But pride and anger took them their separate ways before he could explain.

He sat miserably in his bookshop afterwards, nursing a weak cup of tea and mulling over the conversation. Crowley had given him far too many things to overthink, but the one thing that remained constant in Aziraphale’s mind was his comment that he hadn’t really Fallen so much as sauntered vaguely downwards. It was such a Crowley way of putting it that he could almost forget for a moment what a terrible thing Falling had been. 

In the early days, Aziraphale had spent hours each day imagining Carina’s Fall, like a recurring nightmare even during his waking hours (for he never did end up sleeping, and felt neither the comfort nor the terror that came with it). Saw Carina plummeting through the air, hellfire searing his wings off in the atmosphere as he burned out like a meteor against the night sky. Imagined a crevice opening up to lead straight into the molten core of the earth and into Hell, where there was nothing but fire and brimstone to greet him.

Obviously it didn’t happen quite like that; Crowley still had his lovely wings, after all. And from his description, Hell was more of a dingy, crowded mess than a sulfurous burning torture chamber. Still, Aziraphale hadn’t thought about Crowley’s Fall — or losing Carina — in quite a while, now.

Crowley never really talked about the time Before, and Aziraphale still didn’t know, to this day, whether it was because he couldn’t fully remember. There were many times he wanted to ask if Crowley held any lingering emotions for any part of his life as an angel, but he was never quite drunk enough to go through with it. He figured it would only hurt to know, in the end. Besides, he had moved on. Was moving on. Or something.

But today was a reminder of what he had lost before, and could not lose again.

He and Crowley could never be friends, not publicly. It just wasn’t safe for them to be anything but enemies.

It wasn’t that Aziraphale was actually worried about how Heaven might react if they were caught in cahoots together. It had been over five thousand years; he knew by now that they barely kept track of what he was up to, or where he went. Crowley had been right: as long as the reports were filed, no one ever followed up. As long as he didn’t overdo his miracles, they blithely told him to keep up the good work before ignoring him again. It was honestly more difficult to get in touch with his superiors than it was to commit a few sins.

And even if they did catch him, what was the worst they could do? Aziraphale already knew what happened to angels who turned down the wrong path. Damnation was far from ideal, but he could probably hack it if he absolutely needed to. He had a tough streak in him when necessary; he assumed it would just get amplified after the swan-dive.

No, Aziraphale couldn’t grow close to Crowley again because he knew what would happen to Crowley if he did. 

Falling must have hurt enough. But demons could not Fall. There was no further to go. Demons could only be destroyed. Wiped out of existence. Atoms scattered across the universe so that they may never form into a whole being again.

If Hell got wise to just how much Crowley had done for him throughout the years, it wouldn’t end well. They would destroy him, and Aziraphale could never let that happen. Not to his favorite demon, his best friend.

Aziraphale had lost Crowley once already. He would Fall before losing him again.

Of course, it was far too late to deny knowing him — he and Crowley had been full-fledged friends for at least three hundred years at this point, even though he would deny it to the end. But with this spat, it could be his chance to break off that relationship. To separate Crowley from him once and for all.

It would be for his own good. Aziraphale would leave Crowley be and they would go on their separate ways, and relearn how to do their jobs without the other person’s help. It might even save Crowley’s life one day.

So even if it meant destroying the steady, reliable companionship they’d built, Aziraphale would stick to his convictions. Crowley was his constant, his north star, and he would rather be loathed for the rest of eternity than spend a second of that time knowing that Crowley was gone.

With this resolve in his heart, Aziraphale took to resuming his full duties as an angel, and as only an angel, for the next several decades. The Arrangement was off, as far as he was concerned, and if Crowley wanted to change that, then he would have to come find Aziraphale, who was doing his best to be unfindable. 

It was a lonely stretch of time, and Aziraphale often found himself struggling with latent desires to disrupt some automobiles, or spread hay fever or awaken some cicadas, but he held it in. Miracles only, and even then, little quiet ones so Gabriel wouldn’t write any more unpleasant notes. He tried to dine in new and unusual places, so that Crowley couldn’t track him down, and also to avoid all the memories they shared at their typical haunts. He knew that if Crowley truly wanted to find him, there wasn’t anywhere on Earth he could hide, but the idea of returning to Heaven just to avoid him was unthinkable. Aziraphale didn’t think he would ever need or want to go that far.

It now felt inappropriate to keep tabs on Crowley’s energy, since they weren’t supposed to have anything to do with each other, and it felt too intimate a practice to continue. So perhaps he asked an informant on Crowley’s whereabouts a few times to find that he often seemed to be sleeping, but that was just common sense. He needed to know what Crowley was up to in order to best evade him, so it wasn’t strange or prying at all. It was just what a good...enemy would do.

\--

Crowley remained distant for the rest of the century and beyond. Whether he spent it sleeping, or just doing his business where Aziraphale couldn’t find him, was unclear, but Aziraphale decided to leave him be for his own good. There were a lot of plans in motion anyway, what with the situation in Europe, and the situation in Asia, and the situation in Africa, etc. Many situations everywhere. Humans were suddenly very busy in the 20th century. Heaven had angels working overtime to thwart the cunning wiles of demonic interference at every turn.

It was how Aziraphale ended up looking a fool at gunpoint in a dark church in the middle of the night. Being discorporated by a trio of Nazis would be such a ghastly incident to have to file paperwork for that he was almost tempted to miracle his way out of it, when Crowley came trip-traipsing back into his life, with a new name, a new suit, and that familiar old panache he had whenever he played up his all-knowing demon persona for the humans.

Aziraphale had never before felt a rush of affection as strongly as he did when Crowley hopped his way into the church, bright and burning like a main-sequence star. It turned out that distance did not lessen his feelings at all whatsoever. It only made him realize how much he had missed his best friend. How alone he had felt that entire time. Aziraphale had always been good at making human acquaintances, but no human contact could fill the space in his life that was meant only for Crowley.

Upon coming face to face again, Aziraphale was a touch more snappish than he should have been, but Crowley prodded right back, and since he had bothered to come somewhere so dangerous all for Aziraphale’s sake, the least Aziraphale could do was save them from being blown to bits. 

As he stood in the wreckage of the church immediately after, he started to wonder how exactly he was going to apologize for being so standoffish for the last eighty years. He would maintain that he stuck by his plan for his beloved friend’s sake, but it wasn’t the done thing to just vanish after an argument. He should have tried to say goodbye and explain his piece before parting ways. Aziraphale was now embarrassed that their reunion involved Crowley rescuing him from trouble he had gotten himself into, especially when the last words they’d exchanged were about not needing each other.

“That was very kind of you,” he started awkwardly, holding his hat, and it brought a small smile to his face when Crowley’s initial reaction was to tell him to shut up. Some things hadn’t changed at all. 

He was distracted by the sudden realization that he had completely forgotten to shield anything but Crowley and himself, which meant that his lovely books had probably been blasted to smithereens.

“Oh, the books! Oh, I forgot all the books!”

Before he could dither for long, Crowley handed him his wondrously intact bag. “Little demonic miracle of my own. Lift home?” he asked, like it was any other day, already strolling off as if they hadn’t refused to see one another for close to a century. Aziraphale blankly watched him go, and then looked down at the leather bag in his hand, completely unscathed because of Crowley. Because he’d known that Aziraphale would forget. A tender sort of warmth bloomed in his chest and slowly uncurled outward.

Crowley didn’t just save Aziraphale a whole sheaf of paperwork. He remembered the one thing that he knew Aziraphale would care about, because he knew him that well. Even after their long separation, he’d never forgotten. Because he was thoughtful, and kinder than he would ever admit, and understood Aziraphale better than anyone else in the universe. 

Because he was Aziraphale’s best friend, just as Aziraphale was his, and perhaps somewhere, deep down, he might love Aziraphale as much as Aziraphale lov-

Oh, fuck.

It couldn’t be.

“Angel! Are you coming or not?” Crowley called before Aziraphale could spontaneously combust from mortification. Dear God. 

Now was not the time for this. _Never_ would actually be the ideal time, but Aziraphale would also accept next Tuesday, or twenty years from now, or 11:39 a.m. tomorrow. Any time but now. Unfortunately, there was no convenient and inconspicuous way out of here except with Crowley, so the immediacy of the issue remained.

He finally picked his way out of the debris to find Crowley standing next to a sleek black car.

“Oh, an automobile. Of course you would,” Aziraphale said, with far too much fondness in his voice. He was completely done for, but Crowley just gave his vehicle an appreciative look before opening up the passenger’s side door.

“Well, I couldn’t keep falling off horses for the rest of the century. Get in, I’ll take you back to the shop.”

Prior to this, Aziraphale had ridden in an automobile exactly twice, and he had found it acceptable, if not a mite fast for his tastes. Sitting next to Crowley in the dark, with his inhuman heart rabbit-thumping out of his chest as he wrestled with this foundation-shaking revelation, the car suddenly seemed the worst place to be. Stuck in an automated carriage as they puttered through the streets and he plunged straight into a barely concealed panic.

Aziraphale knew love — had always known it since God had made him, for what was an angel if not a vessel for God’s love and light and truth? And so Aziraphale had come to understand, while standing guard at the edge of Eden, that the love he held for Carina was incomparable. The love he held for Earth and its living things was special in its own way, but did not burn with equal warmth. Nor did his love for the other angels, or perhaps even God Herself.

But he had known his love for Carina as starlight and celestial creation. As the purest form of friendship, and the ultimate height of affection.

Not as a slow trip home, or an ongoing conversation, or a debt paid in favors across six millennia. Not as a gradual slide back into familiarity, or an argument built out of running jokes, or a soft silence when the world was briefly illuminated with beauty. Love had never been an enemy-turned-accomplice-turned-friend dropping in just for a meal, or shared complaints about the higher-ups whilst feeding ducks, or sightseeing in between splitting up assignments.

Love was never so long nor resilient nor constant.

Aziraphale knew love, but hadn’t quite known himself well enough to understand what was happening until it was too late to turn back. And now he was faced with the stark truth, and he wasn’t certain he had processed it yet.

But he needed to say something, because after his short explanation about the key points of his car, Crowley had grown silent, and Aziraphale could not bear to accidentally lose his companionship again so soon.

“The- the books. You saved them. For me,” he said, because it still had not left his mind.

Crowley shrugged, cavalier about it all as if he didn’t know exactly how much the gesture meant. “Eh, it was the least I could do. You’ve been collecting the damn things for so long, you don’t deserve to lose them because of a few fascist dimwits.”

“Well,” Aziraphale said creakily through his parchment-dry mouth, “it was very decent of you. Nice, even.”

At this, Crowley grew disgruntled. “ _Nice_. Don’t go spreading that around; I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.”

“Understandable. Still, I- I do think it might be the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you.”

Crowley startled, and then looked away from the road for a second to stare at Aziraphale. Despite the glasses, Aziraphale could tell he seemed a little lost. Almost as if he had misplaced something and was just now searching for it. Aziraphale made the mistake of blinking, and for an infinitesimal moment in time, the image of Carina bashfully explaining the dove intersected with the present, blurring the lines again.

_“It’s the least you deserve.”_

_You have always been kind to me_ , Aziraphale wanted to confess. _You have always been the warmest star in my sky. You are the greatest gift I will ever receive._

Crowley shook himself out of his reverie right afterward, breaking the illusion, and made a sibilant noise of amusement. “That’s rather tragic, angel. There must’ve been others. I’m certain Mr. Hanaya was pretty kind that time he let you into his restaurant five minutes before closing.”

Aziraphale could accept the change in topic. It was probably best for his own wellbeing. “Ah, that’s- well, you know how I do love sushi.”

“Yes, I had noticed,” Crowley said dryly as he made a left turn. “Almost as much as you love crepes. I’ll remind you now, Aziraphale: there’s a war on. Don’t go getting any cravings.”

“That was _one_ time-”

They passed the ride with gentle conversation about what trouble they’d gotten up to in the last couple of decades, and though Aziraphale tried to keep his eyes on the drab rubble of the London streets, he couldn’t help but glance at Crowley over and over. It seemed suddenly impossible to ever look away.

Six thousand years ago, Aziraphale had fallen in love with an angel before he had even known he could. That love had been torn from his grasp, and Aziraphale had thought he could never harbor those feelings for anyone ever again.

Fourteen minutes and thirty-nine seconds ago, Aziraphale had finally realized that he’d spent the entirety of his time on Earth falling in love with the same person all over again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies, the last third of this story was becoming unwieldy, so I split it here instead! The final chapter is in progress now. Thank you again to the incomparable [mozaikmage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mozaikmage/pseuds/mozaikmage) for her help!!
> 
> Thank you for your patience; I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Being in love with a demon was about the same as being in love with anybody else.

Actually, Aziraphale had no frame of reference for that assumption. He made it based on what he had picked up from literature and songs throughout the years, because he only had experience with being in love with one person.

One person who was being exceedingly difficult.

Crowley, for the last few months, had been planning something — some sort of dangerous caper in order to get his damned holy water. He never mentioned it directly to Aziraphale, but he would get squirrelly whenever they passed a church, glancing all about the building as if checking for points of access, and it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. Aziraphale had to wonder if he had left Crowley up to his own devices for too long.

Things had been a bit cool between them since the second Great War, though nowhere near as distant as in the previous century. Aziraphale wanted to see Crowley, he really did, but that was the problem. He desired to be near Crowley with frightening constancy, and it was very distracting. He already knew he _wanted_ far more than a good angel should, but this was an entire leap further. 

All other pleasures of the Earth were ephemeral, fleeting. Food, music, books — some lasted longer than others, but in the end they were all still expendable. They were things that Aziraphale could stand to lose.

Crowley was not.

Even before he had realized the depth of his own feelings, Aziraphale had already decided he valued his friend far too much. Now, he knew it beyond any of the hundreds of doubts that always lived restlessly between his heart and his ribcage. Few things in the universe were absolutely immutable, but apparently Aziraphale’s love numbered among them.

He knew it so intensely that the understanding of all his devotion, all his thousands of years of yearning, threatened to burn through him like a wildfire whenever they were together. He could feel it spiking in his aura, going from candle flame to signal flare, and it was too embarrassing to be seen like this, trailing love everywhere behind him like thick fog over the sea. It was why he made sure to still leave a comfortable distance between them.

Aziraphale had thought for a long time that he was good at staying under the radar, at keeping quiet and undetected, but he had forgotten about all his attention grabbing behavior throughout the years. Giving away his sword, getting thrown in prison, accidentally convincing a very lovely family-run bakery that he was his own grandfather, bringing a child’s beloved cat back to life with a gentle tap. He could be something of an unintentional rabble-rouser, and with this new, haunting truth hanging over him, he thought it more prudent to limit their interactions until he could get ahold of himself, lest he accidentally incite a spontaneous celebration in the streets or a spate of wartime weddings or something.

It took a few years until he could be reasonably certain he wouldn’t burst out in accidental miracles, and all the while, he was consumed with the knowledge of just how much he missed Crowley’s company again. He wanted the calm familiarity of their usual routines, the comfortable way their lives fit together, the reliability of knowing they had each other if no one else. But that was too much to handle until he could be sure he wouldn’t make a right mess of things and ruin it all.

Because rarely, foolishly, he would dare to wish for more.

Love was terrifying. Love was a comfort. 

Love meant making difficult choices because he trusted Crowley enough to do the same for him.

Aziraphale wound up meeting with Crowley on and off over the last twenty-five years, and things had been fine enough, once he learned to temper his ridiculous aura. They still dined together on occasion, and met up in parks to exchange information, and took a few walks through city streets as they meandered through old debates. It felt almost the same as it always did, besides Crowley’s restlessness and Aziraphale’s iron-hearted attempts at showing restraint. He was happy enough to wait for matters to level back out on their own, even if it took several more decades.

But he could not stand by once it seemed Crowley was serious about committing his church burglary. At first Aziraphale thought about trying again to dissuade him from his quest, but then he remembered the last hundred or so years, and figured this was a battle that was not his to win. So he would have to be the next safest recourse.

Procuring holy water was the easy part. He was an angel after all. It was afterwards that he had trouble with: pipetting the water very carefully into one of his favorite tartan thermoses and wiping the thing down thrice over to make certain there was no lingering holy residue. He spent the entire time second-guessing this probably terrible idea, and then an additional two weeks pacing the bookshop trying to find the right time to spring his “gift” on Crowley, and then was thrown into mild panic when he heard the whisperings around Soho about someone recruiting for a morally questionable burglary job.

With all that plaguing him, he decided in the end to just confront Crowley before he could get his plan off the ground. While Aziraphale was at it, he tried one final time to convince Crowley, but it was to no avail, so he turned the thermos over, hoping this would be the end of Crowley’s dangerous escapades.

“After everything you said,” Crowley murmured, glancing between Aziraphale and the thermos held gingerly in his hands. He always held things so carefully. Reverently. As if his hands remembered building cells and stones from the carbon he pulled out of each darling star. “Should I say thank you?”

“Better not,” Aziraphale responded, barely suppressing a wince. He didn’t want to regret this decision, but he still couldn’t help but to dwell over what Crowley could possibly use the holy water for. Nothing good came to mind.

“Well, can I drop you anywhere?” 

“No, thank you.” Crowley clearly wanted to show his gratitude in some way; Aziraphale could feel the dismay in his eyes, even if he couldn’t see it. He’d known how to read Crowley long before he’d ever read anything else. Long before the written word had been invented. “Oh, don't look so disappointed. Perhaps one day we could...I don't know. Go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz.” Do all the things they used to do without hesitation, before Aziraphale came to understand what a fool he’d been.

But Crowley was persistent as ever. “I'll give you a lift. Anywhere you want to go.” He made it sound so simple, like they could have whatever they wanted. Like they could still be what they always were, before Aziraphale went and complicated everything.

 _Yes_ , Aziraphale wanted to say. _Anywhere you’ll bring me_ , he wanted to say, but he could feel himself burning too bright again, searing like a solar flare, and he knew it was still too soon. He needed time. He needed to find his own equilibrium first. It wasn’t Crowley’s fault that he made Aziraphale lose all sight of common sense.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he confessed, desperate not to show how fragile he felt. Right now, he needed everything between them to be soft and slow, glacial even, so he could pretend for a moment that nothing had ever changed. So he could take another twenty years to come to terms with the fact that there were some things that an angel was never supposed to want — things he had wanted long before humanity taught him it might not be so wrong.

He could almost feel Crowley’s confusion, and possibly a slight bit of hurt, but he needed to remove himself before he could change his mind. It was hard to negotiate against love. Wordlessly, he exited the car without looking back, and walked the long way back to his bookshop. He needed the air to clear his head. He needed the sounds of the city and the press of the pavement against his feet to remind him of everything he would be risking if he ever chose to act on his desires.

\--

They eased back into the old routine.

Without the issue of the holy water looming over them, and with the additional space of the 1970s for Aziraphale to get his emotions under control, they finally slotted back into their usual mode of being. The Arrangement still stood. They still met to discuss work and lunch and those silly spy movies Crowley liked so much. He still made Aziraphale’s heart feel too, too full, but by now that was just standard fare, and he could handle it.

Aziraphale enjoyed the twentieth century, but often found himself floundering at every development that humans churned out each year. At least he had a grasp on computers. Crowley, on the other hand, had much to say about everything, and found at least half of humanity’s progress to be a convenient vehicle through which to sow even further dissatisfaction.

“The weirdly scented puddle of condensation from the air conditioner, that’s me. That awful little clapping monkey doll. Those plastic soup spoons that are a little too wide for the mouth. Matched set with the disposable chopsticks that leave splinters everywhere.”

They were enjoying a snack together in Singapore, and Aziraphale was feeling overdressed in the heat. Crowley was ticking vile accomplishments off his fingers after Aziraphale had commented that he’d been a bit conspicuous in his miracles lately.

“Oh, splinters are infuriating. You would think that with the size of the human body a little sliver of wood wouldn’t sting so much.” Aziraphale looked down at his nicely manicured hands and shuddered at the thought of getting a splinter.

“That’s the upssside of being able to shed your skin.”

“Not all of us have such a convenient skill, Crowley.”

“I wouldn’t call it convenient, per se, but also, have you ever tried? Might be that you can do it too, you just never realized.”

“I don’t think I’m going to dignify that suggestion with a response,” Aziraphale said primly, and took the last bite of his rice.

“Dodging the question with an obnoxious sense of moral superiority — how very heavenly of you.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “Funny, it’s almost like you know how they operate upstairs.”

“I’ve got at least a passing familiarity, yeah,” Crowley said offhand, but before Aziraphale could get to the bottom of that, he perked up and pointed at a kopitiam across the street.

“Was colored ketchup yours too?” Aziraphale asked after getting their kaya toast, thinking about the horrifying breakfast he witnessed an American child eating yesterday.

“Nah, Heinz did that themselves. You know, humans generally do such a bang up job with food that it’s shocking when they pull a stunt like that out of nowhere. Like jello salad: that was an odd one.”

“Oh, that was- I might have helped launch that,” Aziraphale muttered, embarrassed about being linked back to such a travesty.

“Did you?” Crowley looked delighted, leaning on his hand to watch Aziraphale fidget sheepishly.

“Well, it started with aspic, and then things got carried away.”

“Knowing this, I feel like we ought to go have some.”

“Oh, no, certainly not,” Aziraphale protested as Crowley stood, looking suddenly excited. “Wouldn’t you rather have noodles instead? There’s a lovely little place right around the corner-”

“Actually, forget food. I just remembered that you _still_ haven’t been in a helicopter yet. Today’s the day.”

With a sigh, Aziraphale followed him, regretting that he set a precedent for riding every horrible machine that Crowley came upon, but never regretting Crowley’s genuine enthusiasm when they did so.

  


Aziraphale rode a helicopter and did not get discorporated in a fiery crash, and even rode another one a few years later to go sightseeing with a tour of elderly women. Crowley developed a hobby for gently overturning trucks on highways and spilling produce and candy everywhere. The years passed. Things were easy again — thoroughly pleasant, even.

Until Crowley rang him up to say that the apocalypse was upon them.

Aziraphale was unprepared for the end of the world. Everyone knew it was coming someday, but that someday was meant to be eons out, not a handful of years into the twenty-first century. Humans hadn’t even been to another planet yet; how could the end begin so soon?

Though, there had perhaps been some hints in recent decades. Pollution at an all time high, wars sprouting up wherever it was convenient, famine cutting swathes through populations everywhere. Head office had been sending more pointed missives about keeping up the Good work, but Aziraphale had assumed that it was the usual managerial pressure that came on every couple hundred years. Apparently it was a slightly bigger deal than he had been led to believe.

Aziraphale met Crowley in St. James’ Park, and wound up completely taken in by his earnest plea to try his wild plan to avert the apocalypse. He hadn’t gone in intending to be swayed, but Crowley wasn’t tasked with introducing original sin to humanity for nothing. Or perhaps Aziraphale was just an easy mark.

“I like the seas as they are,” Crowley said when Aziraphale passed him the last piece of crust for the ducks. _I know you do_ , Aziraphale didn’t bother saying because he felt the same exact way. “It doesn’t have to happen. You don’t have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right.” There was a familiar melancholy to his voice. Aziraphale wished he didn’t know it so well.

Heaven so loved its tests. And destruction was one of its favorite methods of control.

“That’s ineffable wisdom for you, I’m afraid,” he said quietly back. He swept the crumbs from his hands and pulled his coat tighter as the clouds gathered above. He hoped it wouldn’t rain; Crowley never carried an umbrella.

Crowley glanced up at the gray sky, and then turned to regard Aziraphale with some desperation. Sepia memories of a world drowned in rainwater seized in Aziraphale’s chest. “Which is why I need you on this one, Aziraphale. We’ve only got eleven years, and then it’s all over. We have to work together.”

Aziraphale sighed as they walked away from the pond, wandering back toward the Bentley. “Crowley, I’m not allowed to disobey. You know that,” he said as they walked back side by side. This couldn’t be solved by a subtle, last-minute miracle. This was beyond The Arrangement. It would be too flagrant, too obvious. Everyone would be all hands on deck for Armageddon, and if he and Crowley were seen consorting, why, it would be a disaster.

“Me neither, but it’s the end of the world we’re talking about,” Crowley said, imploring. Because even after all this time, he’d never learned how to fall out of love with the Earth. If anything, he loved it more than he ever had as Carina. He’d had no hand in creating humanity, and had grown to like them so much anyway. “The _end_ , angel.”

There was some wining and dining and further convincing after that, but it was probably there that Aziraphale’s resolve had begun to weaken before eventually eroding down to sand.

The thought of working together should have been enough for Aziraphale to realize that this plan might come back to haunt them, but he hadn’t gone through some thousand years of fraternization to suddenly have the good sense to back out now. Besides, even if it wasn’t the smartest decision, or the best one, it was the decision that gave them a chance, and so Aziraphale had to take it. He had invested too much in this strange little planet, both good and evil, to let it go to ruin like this. Only Crowley understood.

Besides, as Crowley had pointed out, who was to say this deal wasn’t all part of the divine plan?

\--

They agreed that the first few years were formative, yes, but in a way that they couldn’t really affect. All the boy would be doing was crawling and drooling and babbling, so their time would be better spent elsewhere until he could speak.

Once the young Adversary turned four years old, they flipped a coin to decide roles.

Aziraphale took the gardener, which left Crowley with the nanny. They started the same afternoon, and by the following Tuesday, Crowley had a lot to say about Aziraphale’s gardening techniques.

“Are you just miracling them into bloom?” he demanded when he saw the state of the Dowling garden. Young Warlock was resting under the trees on a picnic blanket for an afternoon nap after Nanny Ashtoreth’s lesson on cheating at card games. The trees above were now covered in delicate white bell-shaped blossoms that swayed sweetly in the breeze. A flock of pigeons stalked the grounds.

“You know I don’t have your green thumb, sweetheart,” Aziraphale said placidly as he patted the shrubbery next to the brick steps. It straightened beneath his palm. “Very well done, you look lovely today,” he cooed at the bushes, while Crowley stamped his slim and sensible flats against the perky grass.

“Don’t _ssspoil_ the blessed things!” He seemed exceptionally peeved, which was quite a look when paired with his neatly coiffed hair and nice little hat. Aziraphale was so terribly fond of his face, even when it was wracked with irritation.

“Oh, don’t fuss- it’s just the tiniest miracle. Hardly anyone will notice,” Aziraphale reassured him. Crowley looked completely disgruntled still, but handed him a glass of ice water and made sour, fussy noises as Aziraphale dabbed at his own sun-worn face with a towel. Under the tree, Warlock stirred, so Crowley busied himself with preparing a snack, as it was Aziraphale’s turn to balance the scales. He already had a parable about the evils of littering prepared.

If Aziraphale was a gardener of questionable ability, Crowley made for a sharp if strangely-beloved nanny. Dearest Warlock, Lord of Darkness, listened raptly to each of Aziraphale’s sermons disguised as nursery rhymes and folk tales, and never hesitated to ask questions, demonstrating a lovely curiosity for the natural world. They got on well enough, and spent many hours strolling through the lawns while talking about wee animals and goodwill and helping others.

But while Warlock liked Aziraphale, he _adored_ Crowley and his grotesque lullabies and immoral fairy tales and stern-faced kindness. He spent more time with his nanny than anyone else in the household, and while Crowley himself found it rather perplexing, he had no objections, though it left Aziraphale working twice as hard to win the boy back toward neutrality. Aziraphale couldn’t begrudge him any, not when he was so often overcome with affection when he saw Crowley rocking the child to sleep on his lap after a read aloud about The Art of War.

Warlock loved Nanny Ashtoreth so much that she stayed on with the household even when in two years, Brother Francis was replaced with his more well-dressed doppelganger, the good tutor Mr. Cortese. While Mr. Cortese gave his structured lessons to Warlock in the study, Warlock’s dear nanny transitioned herself into half-governess, half-caretaker, and continued to teach her ward during mealtimes and on the way to activities and before bedtime.

And so, for the most part, the plan was rolling along quite well. Both offices accepted their reports gladly, and made no real attempt to investigate the situation, which was not unexpected. And Aziraphale and Crowley saw much more of each other in a working capacity than they had in years.

They’d never consistently spent so much time together, and it was rather nice. It was easy to find ways to catch a quick bite together, or hold a spot of casual conversation while Warlock pedaled around on his tricycle. They never discussed Warlock’s progress while at work, of course. That was what the buses and art galleries were for. At the Dowling estate, their relationship came across as slightly more personal than professional. It all felt peculiarly...human.

Aziraphale suspected that the other staff thought they were carrying on some kind of sordid affair, which would make him laugh if it didn’t make his affections so apparent, but the menacing click of Crowley’s flats usually caused them to scatter before he could catch them gossiping.

“Is that necessary, dear?” he asked one afternoon, after Crowley had frightened away the housekeepers from the sitting room again. Aziraphale was writing up another report for Heaven while looking out the window at their ward. Warlock was at tennis lessons and would be occupied with drinking juice and lazing in the shade for an additional half an hour afterwards. “You know they’re harmless.”

“What? I’m not doing a thing,” Crowley said as he tugged off his dark gloves, placing them on the arm of Aziraphale’s chair. “Am I to blame if they’ve developed some sort of Pavlovian reaction to the sound of my shoes?”

Aziraphale clicked his tongue. “It was in no way unintentional that you were telling Warlock stories about punishing people with Catherine wheels and heavy rocks every time poor Miss Smythe came by to vacuum the floor.”

“It’s hardly my fault that the boy likes to hear about sixteenth century torture implements. Besides, he was about to try and build a castle using his father’s priceless baseball card collection, and poor Miss Smythe certainly would have tried to put a stop to it. How’s he ever going to learn about pushing boundaries if he gets thwarted at every turn by do-gooders?”

Brushing off a speck of lint from Crowley’s sleeve, Aziraphale nodded sagely. “Oh, of course. It’s the demonic upbringing you’re concerned about, and not the wobbly face he makes when he feels upset. I should have known!”

Crowley paused, lifted a finger as if to argue a point, and then leaned against Aziraphale’s chair in defeat. “...well, tears are a form of argument too. Neither clever nor well-constructed, but convincing.”

Aziraphale regarded him warmly. “You always did like children.”

“Liking sprogs is very different from raising them,” Crowley said, waving a run out of his stockings. Aziraphale held his hat for him as he freshened up the rest of his ensemble. “This isn’t a bad assignment — far from it — but I can’t say I’m not glad it’s only going to last three more years.”

“Fair enough.”

Crowley was always more fashion conscious than Aziraphale, who found a favorite coat or tie or scarf and then settled into it for the next two hundred years, but Aziraphale did enjoy seeing how his beloved wore each new trend.

He thought it a pity that Crowley hadn’t worn any frocks or gowns in recent memory, which was why he hadn’t the sense to censor himself from saying, “You look quite smart in tweed; the skirt is becoming on you.”

“Ah, you think so?” Crowley asked as he smoothed away the wrinkles in his jacket. “I didn’t realize you noticed these kinds of things, angel.”

“I notice” _—everything about you—_ “more now that I see you every day.” He waved a hand generally at Crowley’s entire body, unsure of what he was trying to convey.

Crowley gave him a crooked smile as he slipped his gloves back on. “Should I take that as a sign that you’ve grown tired of my face?”

“Don’t be foolish,” Aziraphale sputtered. “How would I know what century it is without your hairstyle to help me keep track?”

“So glad to be of use.”

  


There was a cold evening in Warlock’s eighth year where they met outside Cadogan Hall, loitering as the other concert goers trickled away down the street. The rare promise of snow in the air had Crowley shrunken in on himself trying to hold onto his body heat, and Aziraphale standing closer than usual as a favor. 

“He agreed that we should save the sea turtles, but he won’t budge on drinking imported spring water,” Aziraphale relayed to Crowley with a dissatisfied shake of his head.

“At least you’ve got him listening to you. These days it’s always ‘Nanny, help me prove I can take care of a hedgehog,’ and ‘Nanny, start a streaming channel on youtube with me’ — what am I, his sidekick?”

“Do you even know how to operate a computer?” Aziraphale asked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you use one.”

“No, I just stand near it and bend it to my infernal will. I like to zoom around the internet once in a while; it’s a fantastic source of aggravation. Hardly have to do anything and people are up in arms.”

Aziraphale nodded. He didn’t use the internet for much but to peruse book collections, but he readily believed this. “Dear Warlock has been quite busy with his computer lately. What do you reckon the score is?”

Crowley scowled at the first flakes of snow gathering on his coat as they began walking toward the river. “By my calculations, he’s tending toward my side at the moment. We should have him do some community service or something. Even out some of those selfish tendencies.”

“Good idea; I’ll suggest it to Mrs. Dowling tomorrow.” The thing about ethereal suggestions was that they felt an awful lot like very, very brilliant ideas that should be acted upon as soon as convenient, which meant Aziraphale should hurry and find a shelter or park or something that could use the help of an eight-year-old boy.

They walked their way over toward the Thames as the snow picked up into a picturesque rate, while ranking the pesky new friends Warlock was making recently. Crowley maintained that Mary-Anne was easily the worst of them, with her tendency to shriek demands instead of asking for things, though Aziraphale thought Jack was her equal, with his perpetually sticky hands that he plastered all over _everything_.

Crowley was about to counter his latest story about Jack rubbing his grimy fingers on Warlock’s new books, but wound up sneezing three times in a row.

“Ble- er. Gesunheit, dear.”

“Times like these make me miss the desert,” Crowley complained. Aziraphale cupped his hands around his mouth to blow away the snowflakes that were settling on Crowley’s head.

“Your little place back in Mesopotamia?”

“Even earlier than that. Before I was so cold-blooded.”

Aziraphale stopped watching the strange way Crowley’s hands were flapping to brush away snow in favor of staring at his face. Crowley noticed and stared back.

“Do- do you mean before the- your, er. The event? In Heaven?”

“Sorry, what?” Crowley asked, making a face.

Aziraphale huffed out a breath and just said it all at once. “Before you Fell.” He waited tensely for Crowley to react, but he just frowned thoughtfully and kept walking.

“I suppose I do. It’s a haze, but I remember a lot of sand. And Eden, of course. It was always warm, back then,” he said wistfully as they passed under a streetlamp that illuminated the falling snow with a honeyed glow.

“Just sun and sand and sea for miles,” Aziraphale croaked, and Crowley nodded.

“That sounds about right. I’ve got a memory for faces, but the rest blurs together a bit after a while. Especially, you know. Before.”

He should ask. He shouldn’t ask. He was asking before he had half a thought to stop.

“Do you remember your life as an angel?”

_Do you remember me?_

They had come to a stop without Aziraphale realizing. The snow had gathered on Crowley’s hair again, and Aziraphale imagined the span of black wings unfolding beneath the flurries. His hands were shaking, and not from the cold. He linked his fingers together to make the shivering stop.

Crowley looked to be really considering the question. He glanced around, as if trying to replace in his mind’s eye the trees lining the road with the endless stretch of desert and ocean. His voice was hesitant when he spoke. 

“There were...cacti. And sheep. Think I made a bear, once. Lots of bats? Oh,” and he looked up at the blank sky over London, too saturated for human eyes to spot the millions of asterisms above, “Stars. I built some of those.” He spun gently in a circle around Aziraphale, pointing up to the sky.

Aziraphale released a breath he’d been holding for a thousand lifetimes. Underneath it all, buried somewhere deep in his subconscious where it couldn’t be burned out of him, Crowley remembered. Not all of it, not ever, but at least his Carina had not quite faded from the world.

“You did, didn’t you,” he said, somewhere between rhetorical question and agreement. “Do- do you recall anything else?” He didn’t know why he pressed the matter. Maybe to see if the knife still sat between his ribs six thousand years after being left to rust.

Crowley’s brow creased, and he tilted his head as he looked up searchingly for something else. “I- I remember speaking to God. Just the once. About how She thought...well, it doesn’t matter now. It isn’t as if She’s still listening.” He returned his attention to Aziraphale, his mouth set in a sad twist. “Not to people like me. She chased us out of Her memory a long, long time ago.”

Aziraphale pushed past the ache to tell him sincerely, “I don’t think She could ever forget about you, Crowley, Fallen or not.”

Crowley watched him for a moment as he considered this statement, snow falling around them like a silent shroud, and then he let out one of his little noises. “Ha. How optimistic of you, angel. C’mon, let’s head back before I crawl under a rock and doze off.”

He probably assumed that Aziraphale spoke from the position of someone who had never been damned, but it wasn’t just empty praise. Aziraphale could not see how it was possible She did not remember Her angel-turned-serpent, one of Her wonderful builders tasked with offering original sin to humanity. She had met Carina and known, even then, who he would become. While Aziraphale had found him to be remarkable, Carina had thought himself very plain and ordinary, and he hadn’t been wrong. But that was the beauty of it. God loved each and every creation, especially the ordinary ones.

There was no way She had forgotten Crowley. After all, Aziraphale hadn’t. 

\--

Warlock grew and continued to absorb both their lessons, but an attitude started to develop around the same time that he got into biking and flashy video games and age inappropriate comic books. A case could be made in either direction for which way his moral compass was facing, but mostly he was a normal and slightly spoiled child. Slightly neglected too, from a parental standpoint, which is why he still asked his nanny on occasion to read him a story before bed, even when most days he acted like he was far too old and worldly for such things anymore.

Aziraphale slipped into Warlock’s room after everything had gone quiet to check that Crowley hadn’t fallen asleep in a crumpled position on the armchair again, and found that he was sitting there morosely watching their charge sleep.

“I think he’s out cold,” Aziraphale whispered to Crowley, who shook himself out of his thoughts and beckoned Aziraphale over.

“Two months until his tenth birthday,” Crowley said. “You’d think he’d be taller by now.”

“He’s already outgrown last year’s winter clothes; I don’t think he can go much faster than that.”

“His hair does. I keep telling him to put it up before it gets tangled in something.” He reached over and flipped a loop of hair off Warlock’s face with a tenderness that he couldn’t quite hide.

“I see he didn’t tell you about the banana gum I had to trim out of his hair last week,” Aziraphale said, laughing quietly when Crowley hissed, “The _what?_ ”

They watched as Warlock made a noise akin to a question, and then turned over in his sleep.

“I wonder what he’s dreaming about,” Aziraphale commented absently. “He told me about a nightmare he had a few weeks ago. He was driving a car that turned into a dinosaur and ate him. Do you think it means anything? Like a vision, or something occult in nature?”

Crowley raised an eyebrow at Aziraphale’s emphasis on occult, but only shrugged. “Means he’s been watching too many Hollywood blockbusters right before bed. Which reminds me, we haven’t been to the theater recently.”

“There’s too many films to keep up with these days. I haven’t even gotten around to that one with the samurai yet.”

“Aziraphale, that came out six decades ago.”

“Yes, but I’ve been so busy in recent years. Upstairs got so swamped once people started fooling around with atom bombs and things.”

“Tell me about it,” Crowley said. Warlock burrowed deeper into his pillow and let out a laugh. “Well, someone certainly has an active nightlife.”

“He’ll go on about it tomorrow morning to stall, I’m sure. Poor boy still doesn’t like reading poetry. Perhaps he should be writing it instead- his dreams would be a good start.”

“Have you- have you ever dreamed, Aziraphale?” Crowley asked quietly, as they watched Warlock mumble something indecipherable.

Aziraphale pondered this question for only a few seconds before shaking his head. “Have I- well, no, I haven’t ever slept, so no dreaming yet either.”

Crowley pulled the covers a little higher over Warlock’s chest before sitting back in his chair and looking up and out the window. His voice was oddly distant as he spoke. “Most dreams fade as you wake, but sometimes...some dreams stay with you, even if you only remember the barest whispers from them. The faint color of emotion that you felt while asleep, while your body rested and your brain spun a story to amuse itself.”

He turned to glance up at Aziraphale, his eyes hidden behind his glasses but his expression as clear as ever. He looked adrift.

“That’s what Before is like. The haze of a dream.”

This admission overtook Aziraphale, and he was left floundering for words. How should he respond to this? Should he offer advice, or condolences, or just listen and nod along?

“Does it hurt to remember?” he asked before he could choose his words more wisely, but it was what he wanted to know most besides the obvious question. The question he would never dredge up enough courage to ask.

“No, no, it doesn’t hurt. It’s...frustrating, at times. Some parts are still clear as anything: heavenly bureaucracy, the way plasma and gas pulls into a star. How bones feel as you piece them together like a puzzle no one’s solved before. The way you can hear the water climbing up the xylem when you let the roots settle into the dirt.

“Other parts keep slipping away out of reach, and some things...I think there are some memories I’ll never realize I lost. It’s likely all in there somewhere, but I don’t know where to go looking for it, unless I get hit over the head with a reminder.” Crowley sat back in his chair. He looked resigned to knowing that there were pieces of himself he would never recover.

“Is there anything I can do?” Aziraphale asked, his voice soft so that the emotions wouldn’t seep out, like watercolors soaking through thin paper. He remembered more about Carina than anything else from his life before humanity. It was likely he knew Carina better than Crowley did, and if he could help unlock those memories...

But he didn’t want to waste Crowley’s time chasing ghosts. He didn’t want Crowley to think that Aziraphale only cared about him because of who he used to be.

Crowley looked at him fondly and shook his head. “Even if you could, what’s the point? I’ll never be an angel again. I’ll never be forgiven.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to respond, but what was there to say? 

“I don’t think about it much anymore,” Crowley told him, his voice casual, like he wanted to believe it himself. The room was still, filled only with the soft murmur of Warlock’s breath. Moonlight fell in fractured beams through the window, and the fairy lights that still lit the room as the boy slept cast pools of red and gold around them. Aziraphale felt like he could sense the fabric of time distorting around his hands as he clenched his fingers around the back of the armchair. Crowley glanced up, eyes hidden behind his glasses and an untamed lock of hair. “It’s in the past, anyway. No use dwelling over what used to be, not when I can hardly recall anything.” 

“Yes, that’s- that’s probably the best outlook to have,” Aziraphale said weakly. No use dwelling on those stretch of days that would remain only in Aziraphale’s vault of memories from then until eternity. “Spilt milk and all that.”

“Exactly. Besides, it isn’t as if anyone-” He stopped mid-sentence as if something had come into sudden clarity. 

He removed his sunglasses to look at Aziraphale’s face, studying him. Searching for a sign, perhaps. Aziraphale felt his breath catch in his throat, entangled with something too close to hope.

“Sometimes I feel like-”

Crowley broke off when Warlock made a snuffling sound in his sleep, but even though the boy stirred no further, it seemed as if the spell around Crowley had been broken.

“Like...” Aziraphale led, hoping he would pick up his train of thought.

“Oh, like dreaming might be one of the most human activities to exist,” Crowley finished as he put the glasses back on, but Aziraphale could feel that it was not what he originally intended to say. He’d felt they were on the cusp of something, standing at the threshold of a door he hadn’t known was locked.

He wanted to recapture the intimacy of the moment, but it was too late. Both in minutes and years, so he reached out a hand to help Crowley out of his chair. There was the slightest moment of hesitation before Crowley accepted his hand, and in those fleeting seconds Aziraphale felt a distance between them, a distance that existed in Crowley himself, that he wasn’t sure could ever be closed. 

Crowley allowed himself to be helped to his feet, and they silently slipped from Warlock’s room, leaving him to dream his not quite human dreams.

\--

Over those handful of years, the head offices on both sides were satisfied enough with each of their work, though it became more and more apparent as the big day drew closer that Heaven neither expected nor desired for Aziraphale to succeed in turning the Antichrist. For all that Hell had brought this upon them, Heaven was far too eager to launch itself into war again. Aziraphale did not understand the sentiment at all; the only times he’d had to actually use his flaming sword it had been against his own kind and he’d been left profoundly saddened and a little scarred. 

Worst of all, this time he might actually have to turn his sword against Crowley. The only relief Aziraphale had ever felt about the rebellion and the Fall was that he had not seen Carina on the battlefield. It might have broken him if he had. He would be nowhere near so lucky this time around, if either of them even made it to the grand event. It was what terrified him most about Armageddon.

This thought sat darkly in the back of his mind every day since Crowley first delivered the Antichrist, and it only grew in magnitude the closer they drew to the end times.

  


In the final few months, Aziraphale started worrying more and more about what they would do if the plan failed. It didn’t manifest much in Mr. Cortese’s behavior toward Warlock besides an uptick in lessons about mercy and leniency, but his dithering during his downtime started to drive Nanny Ashtoreth to her wits’ end.

“I swear, Aziraphale, if you open that drawer _one more time_ ,” Crowley hissed while snapping a handkerchief out to rub at a splotch of ink on Warlock’s notebook. He successfully smudged the small blot into a hideous streak across the cover.

Aziraphale looked down to find that his hand was still poised on the handle of the desk drawer that he had been compulsively opening and closing for the last half an hour. “Oh, was I…? I’m sorry, my dear boy, I hadn’t even noticed. I just can’t stop thinking about what we’ll do if- if it doesn’t go according to plan.”

Crowley sighed. With nimble fingers he folded up his handkerchief (embroidered with pitchforks around the edge — a bit of sardonic humor that Aziraphale had found fitting when he gifted the thing to his dear friend) and tucked it back into a pocket. 

“Look, we’ll- we’ll figure it out if it comes to that. You and I- at this point, we might as well be on our own side. We’ll sort out what to do together.”

“Our own side?” Aziraphale tapped his fingers nervously across the desktop instead of tugging the drawer open again. Crowley wasn’t exactly wrong. After all these millennia, after keeping to The Arrangement for so long, was there anyone that Aziraphale truly felt more loyal to than Crowley? Was there anyone else he would want by his side at the end of all things? 

But it wasn’t like he could so easily renounce Heaven. They had a tendency up Above not to let things go. And he had a strong suspicion that Hell wasn’t big on forgiveness either.

“Are you sure you should be aligning yourself with the enemy?” he asked Crowley, who strode over to arrange Mr. Dowling’s stack of papers more precariously at the edge of the desk.

“By now, we’re only enemies in name. If we don’t pull this off- at best, we’ll be seeing each other on the front lines. I’d rather we make our own getaway plan. I’m not very handy with a sword,” he confessed. Aziraphale thought back to the Middle Ages, and Crowley’s poor sword form and laughed despite the headache building in his temples.

“I very much hope it doesn’t come to that. A getaway plan? That’s...an option, I suppose.”

“But look,” Crowley said, trying to sound optimistic, “we can worry about that later. Everything’s been on track lately. We’ll just stick to the plan. Keep Warlock on the right path.”

Aziraphale wasn’t precisely pleased with this course of action, but worrying hadn’t done him any favors yet, so he tried to buck up and concentrate on imbuing Warlock with as much good as he could in the limited time they had left. Crowley focused on doing the exact opposite, and all was as well as it could be.

By the time Warlock was about to turn eleven, he was still too normal and something of a twerp. Aziraphale wasn’t sure whose fault that last part was, though Crowley argued it was genetics. There was nothing to be done about it at this point. Warlock had not manifested any of his abilities as the Destroyer of Kings yet, but it was no guarantee that he would not awaken to his power on his birthday. They had done the best they could with the time they had; it was out of their meddling hands now.

There would be no way to know until the hell-hound appeared.

\--

The hell-hound did not appear.

Warlock’s birthday party was a disaster for Aziraphale’s magic career and great fun for the children, but he would still chalk it up as a loss, seeing as he had cake on his face, a dead dove up his sleeve, and no indication on whether the world was about to end. 

Crowley fixed up the dove with a tender breath, bringing life back to a gift he would never remember giving, and sent the bird on its way. Aziraphale, still covered in cake, watched his fellow white-winged creature fly off happily, completely unaware of what mayhem was probably about to unfold. 

Seated there together in the Bentley, as they seemed to often be during Aziraphale’s most life-changing moments, they came to the realization that somewhere along the line, some part of their plan had gone very, very wrong.

“No dog,” they both noted.

“Wrong boy,” they also agreed.

So apparently they had lost the Antichrist. This was the kind of thing that usually ended in corporal punishment, which, with the way Above and Below tended to run their business, would likely have everlasting effects on Aziraphale and Crowley’s ability to exist.

The two of them mucked around trying to locate the actual Spawn of Satan, and by the time Aziraphale figured out who and where the Antichrist was, he was also told in no uncertain terms that Heaven was not interested in averting war. Heaven was extremely pro-war, actually, and Aziraphale was summarily dismissed and left feeling stupid again for trying to bridge a chasm between himself and his brethren that had only widened over his millennia spent on Earth.

He knew he should have told Crowley about finding the boy. He had wanted to, very much, but he had also needed to get ahead of the problem before Heaven found out on their own, so he decided to report to head office to get that out of the way before he and Crowley cooked up a plan about how to move forward.

(In retrospect, that may have been a mistake.)

After receiving Crowley’s call, Aziraphale hurried over to the bandstand for their covert meeting, now unsure how to proceed after that unproductive meeting upstairs.

But upon seeing Crowley, with his winding walk and restless hands and light like Polaris still, Aziraphale knew exactly what he needed to do.

Even if the world weren’t about to end, as a demon, Crowley had nowhere left to turn — nowhere left to Fall — if either side caught onto what he’d been doing for all this time. Fraternizing, conspiring, _miracling_. And with war riding to their doorstep, there was no other choice. Crowley needed to go, and Aziraphale needed to make sure he stayed gone.

He played along when Crowley mentioned that he hadn’t found any leads yet. It would be easier to get rid of him that way.

“Perhaps we just should just wait it out,” Aziraphale offered, after being caught off guard by Crowley’s shoe-size joke and trying to recoup. 

“No, that’s no good. We haven’t any time left. Look, we find the boy, and then-”

“And then what, Crowley? We eliminate the child? Could you do that?”

Crowley faltered for a moment, before leaning in again. “Well, someone does. I’m not personally up for killing kids.”

Aziraphale scoffed, trying to make it sound believable. “Of course you aren’t. Even though you’re a demon. ”

“Just because I’m a demon doesn’t mean that I’m up for slaughtering children. You know-” He broke off before explaining further, but Aziraphale did know. He’d always known. Crowley did his infernal duties well, but children would always be a sticking point for him.

“Because that’s an explanation that will go over well downstairs. Can’t get a bit of blood on your hands for the greater good?”

“Well, _you_ could take care of it,” Crowley snapped, and Aziraphale shook his head dismissively.

“That’s not exactly in my job description. I’m an angel. Child-murder isn’t within my purview.”

“That's a bit holier-than-thou, isn't it? As if your lot didn’t rain fire and brimstone down upon kingdoms, or drown half a civilization as punishment. From what I remember, Heaven seemed very comfortable with murdering children!”

“Things were...different, back then. And you know I had no say in those decisions-”

“Well, someone on your side did, so someone on your side could very well take care of matters again, couldn’t they?”

Manipulation had not started off as a part of Aziraphale’s skill set, but during his time on Earth he had become quite adept at it, especially where Crowley was concerned. The thing about Crowley was that he was very good at temptation, but he also had an irrepressible drive toward action, and if Aziraphale floundered about long enough, Crowley would inevitably come help him out. Right now, he needed the opposite to hold true. He needed to send Crowley away. He...he needed to be cruel.

“I’m a Principality, Crowley! I guard things, I don’t hurt them. It’s rather frowned upon for an angel like me to run about killing people, you _must_ know that. You used to be an angel too, though I suppose it’s too much to ask you to remember that,” he snapped without taking a breath, trying to expel the words before he could regret saying them.

The way Crowley recoiled was enough for the guilt to rush through Aziraphale’s veins like adrenaline, but he didn’t step back. This was for the greater good. He needed to remember that, even when the pain that flashed across Crowley’s face remained with him hours later.

“I don’t know why I’m still trying to talk sense into you. I’m leaving,” Crowley hissed, stalking off to leave Aziraphale behind.

“Good, scamper off while you can,” Aziraphale called after him. 

Crowley spun around on his heel, the hurt still evident in his eyes. Despite that, he still tried one last time to plead, “You asked me once what we would do if it all fell apart. I’m telling you now, angel: even if this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo, we can go off together. It’s a big, big universe.”

And for the briefest of moments, Aziraphale almost agreed. But his willpower held out. He couldn’t just leave the Earth to burn down to its core.

“Go off together? We can’t- Listen to yourself. We can’t just run off together.” 

“We can,” Crowley insisted, poised at the edge of the bandstand, like he was tempted to return to Aziraphale’s side. As if gravity itself compelled them toward one another. “We’re on our own side, remember? The getaway plan: this is it. Come with me, and we can be gone before they even know they should be looking for us.”

There might have been a small window in time when Aziraphale had been both self-possessed and soft-willed enough to give in to this plea. Long before he had come to love this planet, he had loved an angel and the stars he had lit throughout the universe. But those days had passed. Aziraphale was never a builder, no, but he had helped create something here on Earth, hadn’t he? At the very least, he had encouraged it, and wasn’t it something worth preserving? Something worth protecting?

Love meant making difficult choices.

“We can’t. The getaway plan was never really an option. There- there _is_ no ‘our side,’ Crowley. Not anymore. Maybe there never really was.”

Aziraphale couldn’t see Crowley’s eyes beneath his glasses, but he could see the rest of his expression shutter closed, finally a wall of self-preservation coming up between himself and Aziraphale’s attacks. Finally they had reached the last straw. Finally he had pushed his demon away again, this time possibly for good.

“Right. Well then,” Crowley said, the words clipped. “Have a nice doomsday.”

Despite knowing better, Aziraphale watched him go, hoping against his own wishes that Crowley would turn back. But, for better or for worse, he did not, so Aziraphale went on his way as well, his heart breaking all the while. There was much to prepare, and barely any time left.

There would be war again. Bargaining with the archangels was not good enough; Aziraphale needed to appeal to a higher authority. He needed to speak to Her.

\--

On the last day of the world, Aziraphale went and did some errands on his way to a truly useless conversation with Gabriel in the park, which helped cement his opinion that only God could help him now.

On his way back to the bookshop, Aziraphale was interrupted by a Bentley haphazardly pulling up to the curb and almost hitting a pedestrian. Crowley unfolded himself from the driver’s seat, already shouting, “Angel! I'm sorry,” as he hurried toward Aziraphale, who was quite sure that Crowley wasn’t the person who should be apologizing. “I’m sorry. I apologize. Everything I said, I meant none of it. Right, then, understood? Good. Get in the car, please.” He was going a mile a minute, and it was putting Aziraphale in a tizzy. Why was he still here? Why hadn’t he run?

Aziraphale wrinkled his nose, confused by the urgency with which Crowley was gesturing at his car. “What? No, I can’t, I’ve got-”

“The forces of Hell have figured out it was my fault,” Crowley continued rambling, barely registering the flinch Aziraphale couldn’t suppress at this news. The branches of possibility were rapidly converging on the worst case scenario. “But like I said, we can run away together. Alpha Centauri! Lots of spare planets up there — Proxima Centauri b’s supposed to be very nice this time of year. Nobody would even notice us. Not until after it’s all over.” He waved his arm up at the sky, and the millions of stars and planets he had forged and loved and forgotten. At the universe that he would no longer be able to cherish if Aziraphale couldn’t get his plan in motion. 

Aziraphale felt like this conversation was moving at a pace too fast for him to catch. He thought their previous fight would have been enough to shock Crowley into hiding for long enough for the storm to pass, but he had underestimated his tenacity, which was a foolish mistake. He had also underestimated Crowley’s willingness to forgive, which sprang from far deeper than was expected of any demon, considering. Aziraphale knew Crowley could be soft when the occasion called for it, but this fight of theirs was on par with, if not worse, than the one they had in 1867. So why had Crowley come running back to make amends only after one day?

Looking at the expression on his beloved’s face, the stress lines a veneer for the fear and anguish underneath, Aziraphale finally understood.

Crowley was afraid, he realized. Afraid for the Earth, afraid for himself, but mostly, he was afraid for _Aziraphale_. Or he would have already run, or gone full turncoat and dealt with the Antichrist in his own way. He was too clever, too independent and optimistic to do otherwise. It was his loyalty to Aziraphale and their long friendship that kept him stranded here in limbo, unable to run, unable to save himself. For a second, all Aziraphale could think was how deeply it hurt to have someone who cared for him this much.

It was time for Aziraphale to be brave. Despite his protests, he was willing to follow Crowley almost anywhere, if it weren’t for the unimaginable regret they would both feel after losing Earth. No matter which side won, the loss would be catastrophic. And so he needed to stay. He needed to find another way out.

He needed to make the right choice. Because he _could_ choose. God wouldn’t have allowed the discovery of free will otherwise. This was no longer a case of Heaven versus Hell, or good against evil. This was the fate of a small, lonely, beautiful planet, and all the billions of humans and millions of other species that inhabited it.

This was about the planet that Crowley considered his home: then, now, and hereafter. Aziraphale wouldn’t give it up so easily.

“Crowley, you know I can’t just run away. Look, I-I'm quite sure if I can just- just reach the right people, then I can get all this sorted out. It doesn’t have to go the way everyone thinks it will.”

Charging forward into Aziraphale’s space, Crowley began pleading. “But there aren't any right people. There's just God, moving in mysterious ways and not talking to any of us.”

But She had spoken to Aziraphale once, when asking after his sword. She was the Almighty — She had known what he had done, what he had _chosen_ to do, and let him lie to Her regardless. She had accepted his choice, his one exercise in free will.

And She had spoken to Crowley too, Aziraphale remembered. She had given him a name-that-was-not-yet-his-name because She had known he would Fall, had known the demon he would become, had known that all the wonderful qualities that he had given his crow as Carina would remain even after he rebelled.

All part of the divine plan. Each of the choices that they were never supposed to be free to make, every tiny string of fondness for the many small wonders of Earth that kept them both anchored here, the bond between them that neither side would have ever approved of — She must have always known about it all, and She had allowed it anyway.

He could pray that She would be so merciful again.

“Well, yes, and that is why I'm going to have a word with the Almighty, and then the Almighty will fix it for us.” She owed them that much — if not to the angels nor the demons, She owed it to humanity to give them a chance. 

“That won't happen! The Almighty has _never_ responded and you think _-_ ” Crowley cut off his own seething reply. “You're so _clever_ , Aziraphale. How can somebody as clever as you be so stupid?”

He looked so pained that Aziraphale was tempted for a moment to give in, but it was a temptation that Crowley hadn’t put his heart into. Aziraphale resisted.

“The same way that someone as brave as you can be so uncertain,” he said, not unkindly. Crowley looked betrayed anyway.

He sighed, quick and dolorous, and stormed back to his car. “I'm going home, angel. I'm getting my stuff and I'm leaving. And when I'm off in the stars, I won't even think about you.” And he got in the Bentley and sped away.

The thing that Aziraphale had learned in the last twelve hours was that this was bound to be a lie. Crowley was still too loyal, too constant. If all worked out the way Aziraphale was hoping, then it wouldn’t matter if Crowley stayed, but he couldn’t help but hope that Crowley would cut his losses and save himself.

It was painful to see how genuinely upset Crowley was that Aziraphale wouldn’t come with him, but it would all be worth it in the end. He just needed God to come through for them, just this once.

\--

Aziraphale hadn’t been discorporated in...well, he hadn’t ever been discorporated, until this point. He’d had quite a few close calls, saved only by Crowley’s timely interference, but he’d prided himself on keeping his first assigned body in good condition.

There was no time to dwell on the loss of a good vessel, though, because he had to get back to Earth and hope now that Crowley hadn’t run off after all, and had received the message he’d left as a contingency plan. 

God had not answered, Aziraphale was incorporeal, and Heaven was still on the warpath and all too aware of his failings, so the only hope he had was his dearest friend.

He focused on Crowley’s aura, steady and tarnished and glowing, and propelled himself down to meet him, which was something of a feat since Crowley was currently in motion. Speeding down a motorway in a fireball with his teeth clenched in a grin and his golden eyes starting to burn red. Aziraphale threw himself into the passenger’s seat, but had to keep flying along to keep up.

“Crowley? Darling, where are you? Is...is your car on _fire?_ ”

“ ‘ziraphale? Is- is that you? Are you here?” Crowley slurred out, squinting at the passenger’s seat. He looked a little bit tipsy and more than a little bit singed.

“Not certain; I’ve never done this before.” He smiled ruefully, taking in Crowley’s bizarre appearance and the endless stretch of empty road ahead. “Are you alright? Why is the Bentley-”

“It burned down, angel,” Crowley blurted, his voice strained as if he’d been crying. “The bookshop. I’m so sorry.”

Aziraphale didn’t have a body, but he felt gutted nonetheless. “...all of it?”

“Nn- mh...yeah.”

So Aziraphale was without a body, without a home, and dangerously low on faith. The bookshop was one of the few material objects that he’d thought of as truly _his_ , and now it was no more. The thought of having nowhere to return to after this left him hollow.

But he had known that someday he might lose it. All things were ephemeral, and he had greater rivers to ford at the moment. He took a moment to absorb his shock and pressed on. 

“Well, I’ll...I’ll work that out once it’s all over. I’m sorry, Crowley, but I’ve rather made a mess of things. Are you still going to Alpha Centauri?”

Crowley gave him a watery kind of half-smile back as they continued hurtling along. “Nah, I changed my mind. Stuff happened. I lost my best friend. Got a little…” He mimed taking a drink before slamming his hand down to clench around the steering wheel again. “Decided if it was all ending, I might as well try and be at the right place at the right time.”

Aziraphale was caught up in the emotion in Crowley’s voice, especially when he spoke about losing Aziraphale, but this last bit overshadowed the rest. “Are you talking about-”

“Tadfield- it was in your- I saw your book, you know, Agnes Nutter? The boy is there-”

Aziraphale felt a momentous surge of love for Crowley, who had sat down at the height of the apocalypse to piece together what he needed to do, instead of running to safety. Crowley had _always_ been in the right place at the right time; Aziraphale should have known that the apocalypse wouldn’t stand in the way of that.

“Yes, Tadfield! Exactly! Oh, this is perfect- look, I’ll meet you there once I find a receptive body. Pity I can’t inhabit yours.”

“Yeah, pity. Good luck with the possessing; I don’t know if I can handle this one alone,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale nodded back. He had no time to waste.

“I’ll see you again soon.”

Leaving Crowley behind, Aziraphale felt around for a body that would be willing to house him, receiving a few pings back from America and Australia, until finding one conveniently close by. At least the commute wouldn’t be too bad.

\--

Now, here they are at the end of the world.

The sirens are sounding.

The Four have arrived. 

The Antichrist is standing before Aziraphale and his motley group of companions, and he’s only a child, Aziraphale knows this, but he must be destroyed, even if that means by Aziraphale’s own hand. He mustn’t be allowed to come into his birthright. 

He doesn’t want to bring harm to a child, but he’s done worse for lower stakes when no one else could be made to do the dirty work. For the greater good, Great Plan or not.

But a moment’s hesitation from the dear Madame causes Aziraphale to falter as well, despite Crowley’s protests, and then he’s unceremoniously ripped from her body and back into a form he thought he would never inhabit again.

There isn’t any time to celebrate that because the Four are advancing, demanding that the boy accept his throne now, and there’s nothing to do but stand back and watch.

The Antichrist— no. Adam Young, that’s his name. Adam Young looks between his destiny and his life as it is, and he chooses. He looks to his friends, these too-human children with weapons of sticks and string, and he tells them they can. And they do.

Famine and Pollution and War and Death are sent back whence they came because Hell gave humanity a child who could bend the world to his will, and he chose to keep the world as it is.

Unfortunately, the End is not so easily averted. Both Heaven and Hell are out for blood, and Gabriel and Beelzelbub make their appearance shortly afterwards to make that fact known.

Since young Adam has the good graces to make the choice they were hoping for all along, it’s the least Aziraphale and Crowley can do to talk their higher-ups out of carrying on with their war anyway. Gabriel and Beezelbub might have the armies of Heaven and Hell on each of their sides, but neither one knows God’s will.

If there’s anything that Aziraphale has finally realized, it’s that no one Above or Below actually knows any better than the two of them what God really wants. Still as ineffable as ever.

But when those two scamper off, they pave the way for something much worse. Aziraphale doesn’t feel it until Crowley collapses to the ground, shaking, before the earth soon follows. A profound sense of both warmth and evil permeates the air, the ground, his earthly flesh.

Satan has apparently deemed it necessary to come deal with matters Himself.

The humans are in a tizzy, Crowley is seconds away from fleeing the scene, and Aziraphale has had quite _enough_ of this whole debacle for the rest of eternity. It’s difficult to keep his balance when the ground is attempting to erupt into burning tarmac and sulfur, but he skitters over a few steps and picks up his sword again for the first time in six thousand years.

A lifetime ago, Carina had told Aziraphale he was a guardian. It’s about time he live up to the title.

“Crowley,” he says gently, but firmly, to his friend, who is swiveling around desperately looking for an escape route. “There are still humans here. We need to do something.”

Crowley, looking rather unwell from the amount of demonic pressure saturating the air, puts up some token protests until Aziraphale asks him, still gently, because he isn’t half bad at temptation after all these years, “What have you got to lose?”

There’s a moment of hesitation while Crowley mulls this over, before he mutters, “Well, _you_ , for one.”

And that’s a tender thought that Aziraphale immediately tucks away where it can’t be forgotten, unless he gets completely obliterated by the Adversary, of course, before he inhales and presses forward.

“If we don’t try, we’ll lose each other regardless. This is the getaway plan, dear. No more running away.”

Crowley stares at him in disbelief for a split second before the earth rumbles even more violently and he scowls. “Oh, certainly, we’ll just fend off Lucifer ourselves, because that always ends well for everyone involved.” But despite his grumbling he strides back to Aziraphale’s side, shooting a glance at Adam Young, who appears to be trying to piece together what’s going on around him now.

Aziraphale is about to try and talk to the boy, but their eyes meet briefly as Adam scans the scene, and Aziraphale can feel the understanding growing inside him. He might be too human to know exactly what’s coming, but he’s more than sharp enough to see that he definitely has a role to play in whatever happens next. Aziraphale must do his own part in return.

The weight of his sword feels almost right in his palm, but he knows that’s just a twisted sense of nostalgia speaking. It was never really his to use. But it comes alive in a burst of flame just the way he remembered, and for a moment he smiles ruefully, thinking about how different everything has become since he last held it in his hands.

“Once you’ve learned how to do it, you never forget,” he tells Crowley, who looks over the thing with the faintest recognition in his eyes. Aziraphale’s mind blinks briefly back to the walls of Eden and the patter of raindrops against his wings.

“Bloody hard to forget something as eye-searing as that,” Crowley grumbles as he takes up his tire iron. “If anyone can do anything, it’s the boy. Suppose we’ll see how much time we can buy with this,” he says, waving his tire iron in the air in the same terrible manner that he always brandished his swords. 

Aziraphale doesn’t mean to laugh, but it slips out regardless, a tiny glimmer of light in the thick evil that’s converging before them. He takes a step forward, motioning for the humans to stay behind them, but then pauses to look at Crowley for what might be the final time.

He has neither the time nor the words to express everything he wants to, so he settles for the next best thing.

“I’d just like to say if we don’t get out of this, that...” — _I have loved you more than anything in creation—_ “...I’ll have known, deep down inside, that there was a spark of goodness in you.”

“You can never let that go, can you?” Crowley sighs, but his heart isn’t in it. He sticks out his hand to shake Aziraphale’s — one last unsavory deal to make before they meet their ends — and replies, with just enough fondness in his voice to hurt, “Just remember I’ll have known that, deep down inside, you were just enough of a bastard to be worth liking.”

They release each other’s hands, and with the kind of unspoken understanding that only their kind would know, they both unfold their wings.

The world splits open in flame as they walk forward, but all Aziraphale can see are the crow’s feathers in his periphery, midnight black and eternal.


End file.
